Darkness Supreme
by Lilith4
Summary: The sequel to "Here's to the Night". Lord Voldemort has been back in power for seven years, and it is time for Harry, Ron, Hermione and a small group of rebels to destory him. R/Hr pairing.
1. Discoveries

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Darkness Supreme

**A/N:** I'm back! Well, for those of you who begged me for a sequel to my fanfic "Here's To the Night", here it is. If you didn't read "Here's To the Night" that's okay, because you don't really need to read it to understand this. It would be nice if you read it, though... ^_^ Anyway, this might be a little confusing, but I will do my very author-y best to make it understandable... or as understandable as anything will ever get with me. I would like to take up more space by **thanking** **everyone** who read & reviewed "Here's to the Night," because your reviews were so nice!! It really does mean a lot to me when people review my fics, so thank you very muchly. Anyway, without further ado, here's "Darkness Supreme!"

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[Okay, I was just kidding about the 'without further ado' part. Here's some more ado that you don't *have* to read to understand the story, but it's a little important. This is a list of those who are members of The Resistance, both living and dead. This list is current, meaning that it is true when the story starts. It might change as the story goes on (hint, hint). It will say next their names and whether or not they are living. For those people who's first names I don't know (i.e. they're simply called Mrs. blahblah in the books, and never mentions the first name) I have made up names.]

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The Resistance (members)

Potter, Harry (leader)

Granger, Hermione [deceased]

Weasley, Ronald

Abbott, Hannah [deceased]

Bell, Katie

Black, Sirius

Bones, Susan [deceased]

Boot, Terry 

Brocklehurst, Mandy

Brown, Lavender [deceased]

Clearwater, Penelope [deceased]

Creevey, Colin [deceased]

Creevey, Dennis [deceased]

Diggory, Amos [deceased]

Diggory, June [deceased]

Dumbledore, Albus

Figg, Arabella

Finch-Fletchley, Justin [deceased]

Finnigan, Seamus (missing, presumed dead)

Fletcher, Mundungus [deceased]

Flitwick, Alberto [deceased]

Hagrid, Rubeus (missing, presumed dead)

Johnson, Angelina

Jordan, Lee

Longbottom, Neville (missing, presumed dead)

Lupin, Remus

Macmillan, Ernie [deceased]

Maxime, Olympe (missing, presumed dead)

McGonagall, Minerva

Moody, Alastor [deceased]

Patil, Padma [deceased]

Patil, Parvati [deceased]

Pince, Irma [deceased]

Pomfrey, Poppy

Sinistra, Tali [deceased]

Spinnet, Alicia

Sprout, Rose

Thomas, Dean [deceased]

Turpin, Lisa

Trelawney, Sybil [deceased]

Weasley, Arthur 

Weasley, Bill

Weasley, Charlie

Weasley, Fred

Weasley, George

Weasley, Ginny

Weasley, Molly

Weasley, Percy [deceased]

Wood, Oliver

~ ~ ~

Ronald Weasley lay staring at the ceiling. He was currently in the Hospital Wing of the Subspace hideout, and he looked like some kind of odd mummy. He was wrapped up in bandages, with flares of red hair poking out from the white cloth wrapped around his head. His left leg was in a cast, and both his eyes were blackened. His lip was cut, and there was a long line of stitches along his left cheek.

Ron wasn't very happy. He had just returned from a very dangerous mission to free someone from the Pens, which was where Lord Voldemort kept his prisoners. The mission was very dangerous, and he had not really expected to come back alive... yet he had. He, Ron Weasley, was gloriously alive.

So why wasn't he happy about it?

Ron sighed. He knew why he wasn't happy. The night before he'd left, he had confessed his love to one of his best friends. It wasn't that she didn't return the feelings, which she had, but that she had left on a mission just as dangerous... possibly more so. It was that she hadn't come back.

Ron himself had been away for a year on his mission, and had been presumed dead until three weeks ago, when he had stumbled into the Subspace Hideout, bruised, bleeding, but triumphant. Mr. Ollivander, whom he had been sent to rescue, was back with the Resistance. His fellow team members (Amos Diggory, Professor Flitwick and a fellow Griffindor Hogwarts student named Dean Thomas) were all dead, killed by Dark Wizards when they were fleeing the Pens. He alone had escaped... how, he didn't know. He didn't even remember what must have been a long trek to get back home... or the closest he could call home, nowadays.

He did remember thinking how he had to survive... how he had to see her, once more, before he died. Ron hardly remembered the battles, the hiding, the fighting... he just remembered needing to see her. And now that he was home... she was gone. Dead. One of her teammates had made it back alive, with the news that the rest were gone. Neville Longbottom and Seamus Finnigan... both classmates of his... gone. Lavender Brown had Apparated to the hideout, and managed to gasp out with her final breath that Hermione Granger was dead, and that Neville Longbottom and Seamus Finnigan were presumed dead. Then she herself had died, gone to join her lover Seamus in the afterlife.

Ron had hardly cried for his classmates. He remembered being stunned, and remembered calmly thinking that this was all a trick, that it wasn't real, that any moment the spell would break and Hermione would come running at him yelling how he'd fallen for it. He'd waited, but the spell never broke. The night before, Ron had cried bitter tears, finally realising that he was not going to see Hermione again.

Madam Pomfrey (the Hogwarts students had never gotten over calling their former teachers "Professor" and "Madam") had just come back from her Mission, and was bustling into the room, rolling up her sleeves and tapping her wand against her thigh angrily.

"Those wizards, if I ever get my hands on one of them..." she muttered angrily, and whatever she would have done to the Dark Wizards was drowned out momentarily for Ron, because a jet of gold water was rushing out of Madam Pomfrey's wand with a loud gurgling noise. They water quickly molded to his body, covering everything and then solidifying. Madam Pomfrey waited a moment, then tapped the hard gold case sharply, and it cracked in half. The two halves fell to the floor and disintegrated. With a sharp flick of her wand, Ron's bandages unraveled themselves and dropped to the floor amid the gold dust. Ron sat up, cracked his neck, and gave Madam Pomfrey a faint smile.

"Thanks," he said. "Was beginning to think I'd never be able to do that again." Madam Pomfrey snorted and handed him a steaming goblet which she had just Summoned. She handed it to him carefully, he drank it, and then lay back down. Within moments he was snoring, and the nurse covered him in a blanket. She looked down at him fondly. He was so brave, she mused, as she began to go tend to the other injured parties in the Hospital Wing. He had managed to free Mr. Ollivander from the Pens, something many people had tried to do and failed. He was destined for greatness, just like his best friends Harry Potter and Hermione Granger. Madam Pomfrey sniffed a little at the thought of Hermione. She had always been fond of the Muggle-born girl... she was always getting herself injured. The nurse had always had a soft spot for her, and now Hermione was gone, gone to join the others the Dark Wizards had taken from them.

Ron awoke the next morning refreshed and healed. He waved goodbye to the Nurse, and headed back to his own rooms. They had given his things to his sister Ginny, and he reclaimed them and stuffed the boxes back in to his old room. He then went to see Harry.

"Ron!" said Harry, jumping up from his chair. The black-haired man covered the space between them in a few long strides, and hugged his friend firmly. He broke away, grinning at the red-head. Ron grinned back for a moment, but then both smiles faded as they realised that Hermione was not going to come into the room, shrieking her joy that Ron was alive and well. Tears gathered in Ron's eyes, but he did not let them fall.

"Ginny told me," said Harry quietly. "About you two. Seems Hermione told her right before she left."

"Ginny," said Ron, shaking his head. "Always poking her nose into other people's business."

"You don't mind?" asked Harry anxiously, looking at his pale friend. Ron shook his head.

"No, I don't mind. Besides, it doesn't make a whole lot of difference either way," he said bitterly, blue eyes pained. Harry looked away and bit his lip.

"I should never have asked her to go," he said quietly, his own green eyes glistening with unshed tears. "I knew she would die, I knew it, and I asked her to go anyway..." he broke off, not wanting Ron to see him cry.

"You did what was right, Harry," Ron said quietly. "Snape had information for us. She was the only one who knew how to contact him without getting herself captured. She knew the danger, and accepted the mission anyway. She didn't hold anything against you." Harry looked a little better at hearing what he had obviously been telling himself since the news came of her death coming from another person. 

"You really think that?" Harry asked. "Even though-"

"Yes," Ron interrupted. "Yes, I really think that." They stood in silence for a moment, then Harry spoke.

"Ginny's due back from her Mission tomorrow," he said. "Fred and George are due back the day after, Bill and your father in a week, Charlie in a week and a half, and your mother in..." he went back to his desk and looked through some papers, "About two weeks." He looked up. "They're going to be so happy."

"Yeah," Ron agreed. "Look, I just got my stuff back from Ginny's room. I'm going to go unpack and everything. I'll see you later, alright?" Harry nodded, and Ron left, heading back to his old rooms. Many people stopped him along the way, delighted that he wasn't dead. Angelina Johnson and Alicia Spinnet both tackled him and nearly strangled him, Lee Jordan hugged him so hard he thought his ribs would crack, Lisa Turpin (who he hardly even knew) kissed his cheek with tears running down her face.

Ron hurried inside his room, slamming the door in case anyone else wanted to pinch his cheeks or strangle him because they were so glad. He sighed, not really able to blame them for their enthusiasm. Even if someone he'd hardly knew had walked in alive, he would've been very glad to see them.

Ron turned to the three boxes of his things Ginny had kept in her room. If there was anything else, he supposed it would he in storage. He opened the first box, and found many sets of his old black wizard's robes. He stuffed them in the dresser, along with the other articles of clothing he found. One, however, was an old scarf that he didn't recognise as his... but upon closer examination, he found Hermione's name written in ink along the tag. He placed the scarf near his pillow.

The next box was filled with odd knick knacks, such as his wizard's chess set, some wand polisher, Spellotape, a few potion ingredients, and other oddities. He threw them all onto the top of his dresser, ignoring the loud complaints of his mirror as a pawn knocked into it. He then delved into the third box, which was very small and contained only a few items.

In this box, there was a thick stack of parchment, a stack of moving photographs, and a very old and battered copy of "Wizard's Chess – How to Master the Master's Techniques!". Ron's lower lip trembled slightly, but he picked up the stack of parchments carefully, as though they would crumble and turn to ash if he dropped them.

They were letters from Hermione.

The first letter she had ever written him, notes she had passed him during Potions, notes she had scribbled on his essays to help him with them... everything. Ron was certain he didn't realise he'd been saving them all these years, but now that she was gone, it was nice to sit and read about things that had gone on in his first year at Hogwarts, when things were still mercifully uncomplicated. As the dates on the letters got later, Hermione's acid wit began to show in what she'd written to Ron, as well as her growing affection for him. In almost every letter, she'd asked how his family was, how his rat was, his owl, etc... until finally towards the end of the letters she'd ask about him. As though she didn't want him to realise she cared.

Ron put the parchments back, eyes glimmering and a drop of blood on his lip where he'd bitten it through. He then picked up the photographs, and had to turn his head away for a moment before he could look at them again. In the white paper frames, photograph versions of Harry, himself and Hermione waved, laughing, their expressions happy. He smiled slightly, and thumbed through the pictures. There was one of him and Hermione furiously pointing their wands at each other and shouting... he remembered Harry having taken that one during Fifth Year, during a loud shouting match between himself and Hermione. How could he have not realised how much she meant to him? As he looked back, he was surprised that no one had ever said anything about it, except perhaps Hermione on the eve of the Yule Ball their Fourth Year.

Ron put down the photographs and picked up the book. He thumbed to the inscription on the inside cover.

__

Dear Ron,

I saw this in the window of Flourish and Blotts and decided you could use some more strategies for beating me at chess. Actually, if you look through this even once, let me know and I think I'll drop dead from the fact that you have read anything not related to Quidditch.

Happy Christmas,

Hermione

Ron smiled at the inscription. Hermione's wit had definitely increased over the years, and she had become increasingly more sarcastic. He closed the book and placed it back in the box. The box itself was placed on the bed, next to the pillow. He had just started gathering his chess pieces into their box when the door flew open, the knob cracking the wall behind it.

"Ron!" It was Harry. He was wild-eyed, looked pale as a ghost, and seemed torn between grinning from ear to ear and sobbing hysterically. All in all, it was a rather odd expression and Ron wasn't sure he wanted to know what had happened.

"What? Harry, what's happened? What's going on?" he asked, in spite of his better judgement. Harry simply grabbed his arm and yanked Ron out of his room and down the corridor, simply saying,

"You've got to see!" Ron went along good-naturedly, allowing himself to be dragged along the hallways. People leapt out of their way, and at one point Harry Repelled someone out of their path.

"Sorry!" Ron bellowed back down the hall as the woman (Arabella Figg) yelled something very rude after them. Harry seemed to finally reach where he wanted to take Ron, and threw open a door. Ron recognised this as the Hospital Wing.

"Harry, what's this all -" Ron's words died before they even had a chance to form on his tongue. There, lying on the bed, pale as marble, was...

Hermione Granger.

***

A/N: Bwahaha, don't you all hate me now? I'm very sorry for leaving you with a cliffhanger, but it had to be done. You see, this part has been written for a long time. I was planning on writing the entire story, then posting it all at once in one looooong chapter, because going to different chapters annoys me so, but people kept reviewing and e-mailing me asking to write a sequel soon and I felt guilty for not putting this up... I apologize for the shortness... but here it is, in it's totally insane and sleep-deprived glory. Oh wait, that's just me, never mind. This is really just to take up space, because I like rambling on about absolutely nothing. Oh, yeah. I have been grounded from going online, but due to the help of my techie pals and my sneakiness, I have stolen my phone cord back from The Evil Online-Taker-Awayer (aka my mom) so I can sneak on. If anyone want to e-mail or IM me, it's L i l i t h A D @ a o l . c o m just without the spaces. My IM is just LilithAD. So pweese talk to me... I am lonely... lalala...

--lotsa love,

The insanely pyromanical sleep-deprived chick who likes to bite people (mostly Chibi2)

(AKA Lilith)

Here some stuffies you may read and think are confusing!!!

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The Resistance – A group formed by Harry, Ron and Hermione the year the Dark Lord took

control of the wizard world. Their goal is to kill Voldemort once and for all, and to try and return the world to the way it was before he came to power. 

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The Pens – The secret place in which wizards are held captive, for experimental reasons. They are tested upon, and made to do atrocious things under the Imperius Curse. Also, those who have the power to fight the Imperius Curse end up here, without magic, slaves of Lord Voldemort.

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Voldemort's wand – Voldemort has done something to his wand that makes it able to simply feed him energy. He no longer needs to sleep, eat or rest, because his wand soaks up energy from around and gives it to him. He has, of course, rendered the thing invulnerable, but Mr. Ollivander (the wand's maker) knows how to destroy it. This information is priceless to the rebellion, but Voldemort knows this. He cannot kill Mr. Ollivander, because he himself does not know how to destroy the wand. If he knows, he can protect that weak spot. The Resistance must get the information before Voldemort does, otherwise they will have no hope defeating him.

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Severus Snape – Severus Snape, Potions Master at Hogwarts, "re-joined" the Death Eaters and said he was a double agent for them. He feeds them false information with enough truth in it to keep the Death Eaters duped. He does not know if Lord Voldemort himself is fooled, though the Dark Lord has never tried to kill or have Snape killed. Currently, Professor Snape has valuable information regarding the Death Eater's next attack.

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Subspace hideout - Sort of like unplottable land, but in this case it took many witches and wizards to come together and combine their magic to actually tear a hole in space itself. The Resistance actually lives in another dimension – inside a "rip" in the cosmic space.


	2. Awakenings

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Darkness Supreme

By *Lilith*

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A/N: Okay, all I have to say is: Did you people *honestly* think I was going to kill Hermione off like that? How could this be a Ron/Hermione fic if she's _dead_? My mind is not _so_ perverted as to have something like _that_ in one of my fics... ew! But come on, Hermione's alive... duh! Plus, Lanz would never forgive me if I killed Hermione off, considering she *is* Hermione. Truly, she is. It's scary. So anyway, onwards to the fic-in-which-Hermione-is-_alive_, thank you very much.

~~~

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Chapter two: Awakenings

Ron's mouth closed, dropped open, closed again, then finally he managed a small "How?" before sitting down very hard on the stone floor. 

"She stumbled in about five minutes ago, demanding to see the Minister of Magic and complaining about Broomstick transportation," Harry said, looking worried now. "Then she passed out at Katie Bell's feet. The girl had the sense to carry her up here and alert me right away." Harry put a hand on Hermione's forehead. Madam Pomfrey was sitting on a chair next to the bed, a small tear hanging off the edge of her nose as she healed Hermione's wounds.

Hermione looked like a bloodied rag doll. There was a long scratch that ran from her cheekbone down past her ear to her jawline, as well as many other smaller scratches on her face. There was a large gash on her shoulder, which ran down across her chest and stained her robes red. Her legs were scratched and bleeding, and her fingers were swollen and purple. Her eyes were purple and puffy, she had a cut on her lip, and her hair was filled with mud, sticks, and dark clumps of dried blood. Her face was covered in bruises, and her eyelashes were stuck together in one large glob with dried blood sticking to them. Madam Pomfrey shooed Harry and Ron out as she tended to the wounds in places that boys shouldn't see. 

Ron's blue eyes were wide, and he was still pale. Even the few freckles he had left had gone pale.

"She's alive," he whispered, mostly to himself. He was completely in shock. Madam Pomfrey opened the curtains gravely, looking worried.

"She's lost too much blood," she said sadly. "Her wounds are infected, and her left arm's been smashed in several places." She choked back a sob. "It's unlikely that she'll last the night. I've healed the arm as best I can, but I can't put her body under too much strain this early." She looked miserable, and Ron suddenly saw her as a tired old woman, wanting desperately to rest, and being held back by her duty and her love for those who still had their lives to live. 

"Can't you do anything?" Ron asked, and he must have sounded extremely pitiful, because Madam Pomfrey bit her lip and looked him up and down.

"You're still too weak, boy," she said. "She needs a lot of blood. I don't have any to spare, I've got five other patients needing it, and I'm sorry to say..." Her voice lowered, "They were here first. It's policy, Mr. Weasley, and I can't... I'm sorry," she said helplessly. "The blood's already in their drips. I can't take them off it now," she said, pushing her hair back from her face.

"But... couldn't you take my blood?" Ron pressed. "I read something about that, Muggle doctors can do it, and if *they* can, I'm sure you-"

"I can do it, yes," said Madam Pomfrey, "But you're too weak. The amount of blood she needs would kill you if I took it from you."

"But what about me?" asked Harry desperately. "I'm sure if you used both of us...?" Madam Pomfrey sighed. She bit her lip, then nodded.

"You'll both be left very weak," she said, going back inside the curtains. "And I can't use more than two people, in case you're thinking of going to get the entire Resistance in here to help her. If I use more than two people's blood, their conflicting magic types will do more harm than good." As she said this, Madam Pomfrey was setting up an elaborate wire structure. It was already mostly finished, she was simply stringing beads onto one of the wires. After there were five beads on two wires, she tapped each bead with her wand. She then walked over to Harry and Ron, and made them both sit down.

"Drink." She had Summoned two more of her foul-tasting potions, but both boys drank without hesitation. They both suddenly felt filled with energy, and both found it a trial to sit still. Madam Pomfrey inserted a small silver wire into the crook of Ron's elbow, then did the same to Harry. She joined each wire to a bead with a long thin glistening strand of blood-red light. 

"This will take a while. I'll go find some more comfortable chairs," she said, and waves her wand. The hard wooden chairs Ron and Harry were sitting on were replaced with large squashy armchairs that reclined if you pushed a button. Harry settled back into his, green eyes bloodshot and anxious. Ron leaned on the edge of his chair, biting his knuckle. 

__

She can't... she has to live, she just has to! I couldn't just get her back... only to lose her again! It can't work like that... she has to get better... Ron stifled a sob and turned it quickly into a cough. However, he didn't fool Harry. He felt a hand on his elbow, and he turned to meet the startling green eyes which locked with his own icy blue ones.

"She'll be okay," said Harry, with calm force behind his voice. "I mean, she's Hermione. Tough as a Bludger Hermione. She'll be _fine_." The confidence behind Harry's words made Ron feel a tiny bit better.

"Yeah?" he said hopefully, leaning back into his armchair. He continued to bite his knuckle, and Harry knew that as a sign of extreme anxiety. He remembered Ron had started doing it in their Fifth Year at Hogwarts, the year after Lord Voldemort had risen for the second time. He hadn't really done anything to Hogwarts, but after Harry had graduated...

Harry shuddered, not wanting to think about it. For a moment, just s fleeting moment, he thought how unfair this war was... a group of wizards, their leader only twenty years old, against the most evil wizard the world had ever known. He quickly shoved the thought into the back of his head.

__

And people like Hermione and Hagrid get taken because I'm such a rotten leader, he thought sourly, remembering the last time he'd seen the half-giant. Hagrid had been beaming at him through the glass window of the train, and had waved vigorously. Olympe Maxime had been sitting across from Hagrid, and she had smiled at him reassuringly. As the train pulled out of the station, Hagrid had bellowed "See yeh soon, Harry!" from inside the train. Harry had waved until the train was gone from sight, and had left to go back to the hideout.

That had been three years ago.

Harry was pulled back into the present by a small sigh. He looked over at Ron, who was looking pale again. Harry noticed that he was feeling rather weak, and quickly looked at the wire structure. Four beads were filled with his blood, and four with Ron's.

"One more bead to go," he whispered to his friend. Ron nodded, looking completely drained. The redhead reached out and grabbed Hermione's hand, leaned forward, and pressed it to his forehead.

"Wake up, 'Mione," he whispered, feeling her cold fingers against his skin. "Come _on_... if you don't wake up, who's going to nag me about what I eat? Who'll I beat at chess?" Ron's voice was low, hardly a murmur, but he tried to will Hermione to hear the words.

"Oh dear!" Madam Pomfrey was back, looking at the beads. She snapped her wand against her hand, and the wire withdrew from Harry and Ron's veins. The moment it did, Ron collapsed against Hermione's bed, her hand still clutched in his. Harry shot up to help his friend, but became overcome with dizziness and fell onto his knees. Madam Pomfrey clucked disapprovingly, and aimed her wand at Harry. He slowly floated onto a bed, and she quickly force-fed him a sickeningly sweet potion. Harry immediately stopped feeling dizzy, but Madam Pomfrey forced him to lie down. She then bustled over to Ron, whom her assistant Nurse was making eyes at and trying to pick him up. Madam Pomfrey shoved her to the side, pointed her wand and Ron and said "_Wingardium Leviosa!"_ Ron floated up about two feet off the ground, still clutching Hermione's hand. Madam Pomfrey tried to move him to another bed, but even unconscious, Ron refused to loosen his grip on Hermione. Madam Pomfrey gave up and dropped Ron on Hermione's bed, and closed the curtains around the bed. Harry noticed all this, and made sure to thank Madam Pomfrey before he drifted off to a dreamless, well-earned sleep.

__

***

Pain. Pain. Ow ow ow ow ow ow ow... I didn't think I could hurt this much and still be alive. Oh, that smarts... that's the absolute last time I *ever* _Apparate on less than half-energy._ Hermione thought, trying to wince and failing. She tried open her eyes, and discovered she couldn't. _What's going on?! Where am I? Who's... who's holding my hand?_ Hermione tried to move her arms, her legs, anything, but found she was paralyzed. The only thing she could do was breathe. _Bloody hell! What is going on here? _

"Ron?" She heard a voice, and recognized it as Madam Pomfrey's. _Madam Pomfrey! I must be in the Hospital Wing! _

"Mmph?" She heard a sleepy affirmative come from somewhere near her left ear, and her breath caught in her throat. That was Ron's voice. _Oh God. He's sleeping next to me. Oh God, and I can't open my eyes and see him! I haven't seen him for a year... and I can't even say anything..._ If she had been able, Hermione would have cried right then. She was so close to him! So close! For the whole year, he was all she had thought about. During fighting, during the agonising long hours spent planning how to best contact Severus... he was always lurking in her thoughts. Whenever things had become too dismal, all she had to do was conjure up in her mind a certain red-headed face, and everything seemed alright again. 

"Oh, good, you're awake," Madam Pomfrey's voice said briskly. "You dropped off before I could give you the nutrient potion, it'll help restore the minerals and vitamins you lost with that blood." _Oh no,_ Hermione thought, _Is he sick? And if he is, why is he in bed with me?_

"Is she awake yet?" Ron's voice was suddenly alert, and Hermione was touched. She felt the hand around her own squeeze.

"No, I'm afraid she isn't." Madam Pomfrey sounded slightly puzzled. "The amount of blood you and Mr. Potter gave her should be enough that she'd at least be conscious... but I'm afraid there's more to this than I thought." _He and Harry gave blood to save me? What did I ever do to deserve such loyal friends...?_

"What do you mean?" Ron demanded. "Is she alright, though? Is she going to live?"

"As far as I can tell, she will," replied Madam Pomfrey. "Her arm's healed up nicely, though it'll always be a little weak. Bones that are broken like hers were are always hard to repair, and they're never the same as before they were broken." _Broken? When did I break my arm? _Hermione wondered. She had a sudden vision of a flash of green light and a scream that sounded like Neville Longbottom, but it was gone in a second.

"And her cuts?" asked Ron.

"They're doing well. The swelling and bruising has gone down, and she's due for another speed-healing in a half-hour. I'm injecting food straight into her bloodstream, since she obviously can't eat." Hermione felt Ron move off the bed, though the fingers that were laced in hers didn't move.

"Good," said Ron. Suddenly, there was a slamming noise, and a loud voice pierced the relative quiet of the Hospital Wing.

"_Ron!!!!_" Hermione recognized Ginny Weasley's voice. "Ron, I'm so happy you're alive!" Hermione heard footsteps pounding on the floor, the sound of a small body hitting a very tall one, and a slight "Oof!" that sounded like Ron. There was the sound of the girl sobbing, then a sniffling, and the shuffling of feet.

"Oh, Ron, you have no idea how happy I am to see you alive," sniffled Ginny after a while. "Well hello, who's hand are you hold—" Ginny's sentence suddenly stopped, and she sucked in a breath. "R-R-Ron? Is that who I think it is?"

"If you think it's Hermione, you're right." Ron's voice sounded a little choked up. The sound of someone sitting down hard on the stone floor reached Hermione's ears.

"They told me she was dead," Ginny said feebly. "They said you were, too."

"Well, _they _obviously don't know very much," said Ron. 

"I just... I can't... why isn't she awake?"

"I don't know. Something's wrong, she's not waking up."

"What do you mean?" Ginny's voice was slightly panicked. 

"She's not waking up. Madam Pomfrey says that there's something wrong."

"Oh... bloody _hell_." Ginny had never cursed in that tone before, Hermione reflected. _She must have changed a lot in one year._ Hermione felt slightly callused fingers smooth back her hair. They weren't Ron's, so she figured they must be Ginny's. She breathed out sharply through her nose.

"Did you hear that?" Ginny suddenly asked.

"Hear what?"

"She breathed funny." Hermione felt Ginny's hair tickle her nose, and she exhaled sharply again, trying to blow it away. "She just... exhaled really fast." Something seemed to occur to Ginny. "Hermione?" she asked tentatively. Hermione breathed out twice, very fast. She felt Ginny straighten up suddenly. "Get Madam Pomfrey," she said in a strangled voice. "Ron, Ron, she's awake in there!" Hermione suddenly felt Ron's face close to hers.

"Hermione? Are you awake?" She breathed out hard. Ron gave a strangled cry. "Oh God," he said. "Are you okay? Does it hurt? Can you move?"

"Breathe out once for yes, twice for no," came Madam Pomfrey's voice. _I'm fine, _she tried to cry out. _I'm fine, I'm alright, I've made it back._ But nothing came out. She breathed out twice.

"Bloody hell," muttered Madam Pomfrey. "I think I know what this is. Hang on." There was a popping noise, and the rustle of pages. Hermione supposed she must have Summoned a book. 

"Yes, it's right here. This is a side effect of a long-standing, very powerful Imperius Curse. If what I'm reading is right, she'll have no idea what happened while she was under the curse... oh, wait... she should start remembering some things," Ron read. There was the rustle of robes, and the door shut. Ron clutched Hermione's hand tightly. "There's a potion here, Hermione. We'll be able to fix you. It takes about an hour to prepare, and there's a spell involved... but you'll be okay, won't you?" She breathed out once. "Good... and I'll stay with you, of course," he said slightly awkwardly. "In the meantime, do you think you can sleep?" Breathe out once. "Okay, just try and sleep. I'm kind of tired too, so I'll sleep right here."

"I'll get you some books," came Ginny's voice. "We can read to you, so you don't get too bored." The door opened, then closed, and Hermione felt new hands smoothing back her hair.

"It's me, Hermione," said Harry, sounding close to tears. "Look, I'm really sorry but I can't stay too long... I have some things I have to organize, but I'll do that quick as I can. I just wanted to say I'm sorry for sending you to find Severus... and I'm sorry all this had to happen..." He made a funny noise, and Hermione breathed out hard, trying to tell him it was alright, that she forgave him... but she couldn't. _I could just scream,_ she thought acidly to herself. "I've got to go," said Harry, squeezing her arm. "I'll be back. Ron will talk to you, and keep you company. Ginny should be back soon, and I'll be back in about three hours." His hand left her arm, and she heard footsteps walk away from her bed, and the door open, then close. She was alone with Ron. She heard him take a deep breath. 

"Hermione, I'm going to get this out, while you can't talk. That night... the last night we had together... meant a lot to me. I realize time's gone by, and... and if you feel differently, I just want you to know that I don't. So, if you still..." his voice cracked slightly, "Still... love me... I still love you." He cleared his throat. "So, um. I... I rescued Mr. Ollivander from the Pens, actually... made it back about three weeks ago. You know, Hermione... Lavender Apparated back here, said you were dead and that Seamus and Neville were missing. Dunno what that was all about." He stopped. "Well, just to let you know, you've been thought dead to all of us here," he said, and she inhaled sharply. _I heard Ginny say something about that... but wait... they _believed _Lavender? She wasn't even _there_!_ Hermione tried to tell Ron this, but failed. She sighed. 

"Hermione, go to sleep," Ron said. "Madam Pomfrey will be here in a while to speed heal you, so you'll get better." A slightly damp towel rested on her forehead, and she felt the towel move over her face, wiping away the grime that she felt on her skin. "Before you go to sleep," Ron whispered, his breath close to her ear, "I'm going to give you something." A moment later, she felt a gentle pressure on her lips, and a slightly sweet and tangy taste, like oranges. It was over in a moment, but that small kiss from Ron was enough to give her strength. She felt him lie his head down next to their entwined hands, and she allowed her mind to wander, to relax... to sleep...

"Hermione! Hermione!" The frozen girl felt someone shaking her, and she jerked into consciousness. She breathed out hard through her nostrils, and the shaking stopped. "You're awake?" She breathed an affirmative to Ron's voice. "Um, Madam Pomfrey speed healed you, and the Potion's ready. Are you ready to take it?" She breathed out hard. _How could I not be? This is beyond aggravating, and I'm starting to feel claustrophobic..._

Hermione felt callused fingers part her lips, which were stiff and refused to move easily. When they were a good distance apart, she felt cool glass touch her lips.

"I'm going to pour this down your throat," Madam Pomfrey instructed. "Try as hard as you can to swallow. If you can't breathe, well... deal with it for a little bit, but if you feel yourself in danger, snort." Hermione snorted, testing her ability to do so, then felt the glass tip back and cool liquid slide into her parched throat. She tried to swallow, but it felt as though ice was growing inside of her, freezing her through and through... suddenly, she felt her throat begin to work, and she gulped the icy liquid down forcefully. Madam Pomfrey saw this, and poured some more into Hermione's mouth. The girl quickly swallowed that, and then downed the whole goblet. Starting at her toes, a warmth was growing... she could wriggle her toes! The warmth was slowly spreading up her feet, her ankles, now her shins and knees... Up to her waist, her chest, through her fingers, and her shoulders, throat... and finally her face.

Hermione sat straight up, her fingers closing reflexively around Ron's hand. Her eyes went wide, and she was about to let out a shout of joy, when something went wrong. Her body began to shake erratically, and she let out a low scream of pain. White hot knives were being pushed into her head, through her temples...

A cool finger in the center of her forehead relieved her of the pain. Her eyes opened, and at first the room was blurred. She blinked a few times, and everything began to swim into focus.

Ginny was sitting in an armchair by the foot of her bed. She looked older than she had a year ago, and there were worries traced on her face that had not been there before. She no longer looked quite so carefree, and her face held lines of sorrow and suffering. A scar ran from the center of her forehead, close to her hairline, down across her temple to the tip of her ear. It had faded, and was simply a thin white line, but it was visible. Ginny's fingers were currently digging into the arms of her chair, and she looked torn between worry and grief.

At the very foot of her bed stood Harry, who looked like he carried the weight of the world on his shoulders. His black hair was spiky and tousled, and his eyes looked more alert than she remembered. His robes looked dusty, and the lightning scar on his forehead looked livid and red, as though it was new. His fingers were clasped together so tightly his knuckles were white, and he was biting his lip so hard a drop of blood was visible.

Sitting on her bed, clasping her hand, was Ron.

He looked different... there was a scar on his cheek that hadn't been there before, and his hair was a darker red than before. It was stilly unruly and spiky, and his blue eyes spilled volumes about how worried he was... Ron was looking at her hopefully, his eyes searching, his lips slightly parted. Hermione licked her lips to wet them, and a small whisper filled the silence in the room.

"Ron?" Ron's eyes trembled, as did his lower lip. Her fingers tightened around his hand, and she tried again. "Ron... I..." her voice failed, and she coughed. Everyone in the room held their breath, lest they drown out what she had to say. "I'm... sorry..." was all she could managed before a fit of coughing forced her to stop talking. Madam Pomfrey grabbed a glass of water and forced the glass to her lips, and tipped the cup back. Hermione drank it all greedily, and when she was finished, she smiled.

"Hey everyone! Long time no see, huh?" Her words, spoken in a voice still hoarse from disuse, broke the tension in the room. Hermione was tackled by Harry and Ginny, who both began talking at once. Ginny was sobbing, and tears were rolling down Harry's cheeks, but about halfway down they bumped into a large grin. Only Ron was silent, and tried to remove his hand from hers. She tightened her grip. _Oh no you don't, Ronald Weasley. I will talk to you today if it kills me._ Hermione put on a large smile, and hugged her two friends as best she could with one arm, the other one straining to keep Ron by her side. Harry and Ginny both noticed this, looked at each other, and pulled away from Hermione. Both were grinning, but Ginny was wiping her eyes whereas Harry simply left his tears on his face.

"We'll be right back with some food!" Ginny promised, and pulled Madam Pomfrey out with her and Harry, closing the door behind her. Hermione turned to Ron, looking, searching in his face... Then she pulled him in to her, and kissed him.

The world stopped turning for both of them. They stayed, locked in a moment that both had dreamed of while they were parted. The two halves of the whole had been brought back together, and their hearts admitted what their minds had been trying to tell each other for so long...

They belonged together.

And for a moment... just a moment... all was right with the world.

~~~

****

A/N: Aww, now isn't that just the fluffiest thing? ^_^;; Well, don't go away yet, this fic is *far* from over. This is just wrapping up what I started in "Here's to the Night" and was too lazy to finish. So now I have to post this right now, otherwise Lanz will hunt me down and murder me. Honestly. Well, with my trusty crossbow and my trusty flamethrower, I should be able to fend her off until she starts throwing tests at me. Love you, Lanz! So, anyway, now to post this... and get to work on the next chapter. And it's only 3:07 am!!

--Lilith

"I have PMS and a gun, now what were you saying?" 


	3. A Quest

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Darkness Supreme

Chapter three

By Lilith

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A/N: Well, here's the third chapter. I don't know how long this is going to be, but I don't think it'll be more than ten chapters. And just to warn you all now, this story is going to have a sequel. Well, once you read the ending (which is already planned, if not written) you'll understand why I can't just end it there. Okay, now I really want to thank ::takes deep breath:: **lapucia, phoenix, Lady Win, Taboo, Squin, Calypso, starrebrooke, Lania, Fe and Cecil **for reviewing!!! YAY! You all get extra snaps. I have been saying that (extra snaps) for weeks now, and have no idea where I got it from. Oh well. So, here's another bout of insanity. Hey, and apparently, I have a brick wall around myself, and every time one brick is removed, five more are put in it's place. ::shrug:: Just because I've never had a boyfriend or girlfriend and wouldn't go out with him. ::sigh:: Oh, well, boys are stupid. Except for a select few. So anyway, enough of my rambling...

~~~

Harry pressed his ear against the door, grinning. 

"Shove over!" Ginny hissed, pushing Harry over. He shoved back, and they had a silent fight over the crack in the doorframe. Ginny had her hands over her mouth to keep her from giggling insanely, and Harry's eyes shone with amusement. Ginny poked Harry in the ribs, and managed to get the crack. She pressed her ear up to it, grinning hopefully. However, all she heard was "_Qietus!_". Ginny pouted.

"He's put a silencing charm on the room, hasn't he?" asked Harry, interpreting her look correctly. Ginny nodded glumly, and the two set out after Madam Pomfrey, who had gone to alert the kitchens of the need for a hearty meal. And, of course, to spread the news that Hermione had come back alive from wherever she had been the past year.

"This is so surreal," Ginny remarked as she and Harry walked down long metal and stone corridors. Harry nodded. "I mean... Ron was listed as dead. Everyone had accepted it, as surely as if he was killed right in front of us. And yet, here he is, definitely alive. I mean... how many other people are we presuming dead?"

"I don't know," replied Harry quietly. "And I can't help but feel that it's my fault. I'm a lousy leader, I don't know why you all put up with me." Ginny frowned at him.

"We put up with you because you do a better job of it than anyone else would," she replied sternly. "Even Dumbledore agrees he can't handle this kind of strain, being as old as he is. You are doing remarkably well." Harry opened his mouth to reply. "Has anyone ever blamed you for someone's death? Besides yourself? No, because we're all going to die sooner or later, and we all might as well go fighting for freedom. And I know if I died tomorrow, I'd know I died fighting," Ginny decided. "But I think I'd take a few of those Death Eaters with me," she said thoughtfully, grinning at Harry. He shook his head and laughed softly.

__

Ginny's grown up rather quickly, he thought, sneaking a glance at the pretty 19-year-old girl out of the corner of his eye. It was true. Ginny Weasley looked tired and thin, but would never admit to being beaten. She was a lot like Harry in that sense.

"Where are you two going?" Madam Pomfrey asked sternly. They both looked up, startled, when she rounded a corner, carrying a large tray. 

"We were going to get Hermione some food," Ginny replied, "but it looks like you ran ahead and got there before us." She eyed the tray.

"Well, if you two hadn't been walking so slow, you would've gotten to the kitchens a lot quicker," sniffed the old nurse. "Turn right around and take this to Hermione. I've got someone I need to see." Madam Pomfrey handed Ginny the tray, turned and walked back down the hall. Ginny and Harry blinked, then performed an abrupt turn and walked back to the Hospital Wing. They both tried to walk as slowly as possible, to give Ron and Hermione more time to talk. Too soon, however, they knocked on the door. Ron opened it, looking clear-eyed and happy. Hermione looked happy as her two other best friends walked into the room. Harry looked at her critically. Her eyes were bright and intelligent as ever, but there was something hidden behind them, something dire. 

"Harry," she said quietly. "I have something to tell you. It's very important. Could you... could I have a moment alone?" she asked Ron and Ginny. They nodded. Ginny sat the tray down on Hermione's bedside table, and she and Ron left the room. They hovered outside the door, trying not to eavesdrop, but trying to "accidentally" overhear something. To their disapointment, Harry and Hermione kept their voices low, and in about 10 minutes Harry burst from the room looking distressed.

"I-I have to go," he said, and took off down the corridor, pale as a ghost. Ron and Ginny hurried be back into the room. Hermione was looking grim, and her fingers were clenched. Her mouth was pressed into a thin line.

"What happened?" asked Ron quickly. Hermione jumped, as though she had not noticed them enter the room.

"I told him what Severus told me," she replied quietly. "Ron, you said something about Lavender Apparating back here and saying I was dead?" she asked, taking him off the subject quite nicely. Ron nodded.

"Yeah, that's what I heard," he replied.

"It's what happened," Ginny said quietly. "I was there." Ron and Hermione turned to her. "She just... Apparated in here, bleeding and half dead. I don't know how she managed to do it. She collapsed at Harry's feet and gasped out that... that Hermione Granger was dead, and that Neville Longbottom and Seamus Finnigan had gone missing and were presumed dead." Ginny looked at her feet. "Then she just... died." 

"I... I don't know why Lavender would say that," Hermione said carefully. "She wasn't there. She and Seamus were heading back on foot, to try and draw away half of the Death Eaters that had been tracking them. Only she and Neville had been there when she had contacted Snape. She remembered everything Snape told her vividly, then remembered a flash of green light, Neville screaming... and then waking up in the Hospital Wing, unable to move.

"You'll remember more," Ron promised. "Remember what the book said? You'll regain your memory. Don't worry about it."

__

Oh, Ron... Hermione bit her lip. _I... I don't _want _to remember... I was under the Imperius Curse... I don't want to think about what I was forced to do..._

"You're right, Ron," she said out loud. "I won't worry about it." Ron's face broke out into a huge grin.

"Good!" he said, sitting down on the side of her bed and uncovering the tray to reveal a warm goblet of pumpkin juice, several steaming buttered rolls, and a tiny beaker of a green liquid. Ron sniffed it, made a face, and handed it to Hermione. "Courtesy of Madam Pomfrey," he told her, and she downed it in one gulp. She made a face that mimicked Ron's, then scarfed a buttered roll.

"I'm _starving_," Hermione said, grabbing another roll. "I feel like I haven't eaten in years." Ginny sat down on the other side of the bed.

"Yes, that's the speed healing factor combined with the energy that was sapped when you Apparated here," she said knowledgeably. "Apparating on less than half-power starts to take energy from your normal life reserve, so..." She stopped at Ron's blank look and Hermione's impressed one. "What?"

"Ginny, I have never heard you sound so much like Hermione," Ron said, staring at his sister. "Please stop before you _really _start to scare me." Ginny flung out an arm towards him, possibly to swat his head, but she was sleepy and her aim was off. Her hand swung harmlessly through the air. Hermione smiled, a genuine smile that reached her grim eyes. Ron noticed this and glowed at her. Ginny shook her head.

"Ugh, my love-struck brother and my love-struck best friend," she said in mock disgust. She snapped her fingers in front of Hermione's face and looked at her in mock distress. "I think he's put a Love Potion on you," she said solemnly to Hermione. "Snap out of it!" Ron made a wounded expression, and drew himself up, looking very dignified. The effect was ruined when Hermione poked him in the stomach, causing him to give off an involuntary snort of laughter. Ginny poked him too, and he poked her back, then gave Hermione a gentle poke in the stomach. She giggled a little and tried to poke him back, but he grabbed her hand in his and grinned at her. Ginny giggled and got up.

"I have to go," she said reluctantly. "I promised Harry I'd have the report on the Southern Sector in by tomorrow." She gave her best friend a hug and a kiss on the cheek, and her brother a fond ruffling of his hair. Ginny smiled at them as she left the room.

__

This day has been unbelievable, she reflected as she headed to the Report Room. _Both Ron and Hermione are found alive... my brother and my best friend... and already I've accepted it as though they were never gone. _The thought sobered her happy mood. _This is what it's come to, _she realized. _We accept everything as it comes to us, because no one knows how long we have left to live. _

It was two weeks later when Harry called the urgent meeting. The whole Weasley family was back with their Mission Teams, and they had all been overjoyed to find both Ron and Hermione alive and relatively healthy. They were all present at this meeting... well, the entire Resistance was. It was mandatory.

"I have called this meeting," Harry began, "Because of new information that has presented itself." His eyes flickered towards Hermione for a second. "One of our members has come back with information regarding Voldemort's wand." The entire assembly flinched. "It seems," Harry said, "That Voldemort has found a way to make his wand invincible." There was a collective gasp from the assembled wizards and witches. "This information is reliable," Harry continued. "We need to destroy Voldemort's wand. In case you don't know, Voldemort has tied his lifeforce directly to his wand. He no longer needs to eat, sleep, or do anything. His wand simply feeds him energy. It has been discovered that the only was to kill Voldemort is by destroying his wand. Thanks to Mr. Ollivander here, and Ronald Weasley, we have discovered a way to destroy the wand. However, Voldemort has found a way to make it invincible. It is a complicated ritual, but will need to take place in three months time in order to properly work, due to moons and tides and star positions and all. A select Mission Team will travel to Hogwarts, infiltirate the base, disrupt the Ritual Voldemort will be performing, destroy the wand and kill Voldemort."

There was a hush. No one spoke. After about twenty seconds of this, a woman with long silky black hair stood up. She was extremely pale, with pale blue eyes and a frail frame. Her cheekbones were high, and she was quite pretty.

"I will go," she said clearly. Everyone turned to stare at her in wonder. She strode towards the front of the assembly, to stand beside Harry. He nodded at her.

"Arabella Figg. You are the second member of the Mission Team." He turned to the assembly, when someone strode forward determinedly. 

"I'll go too," said Ron Weasley, standing beside Arabella, crossing his arms across his chest and glaring about him, as though daring anyone to say he couldn't go.

"As will I." Hermione Granger moved to stand beside Ron, cool and collected.

"If Hermione's going, I guess I'm going too," said Angelina Johnson.

Sirius Black didn't need to say anything. He simply moved to stand by Harry's other side.

"I'm going." Kate Bell stood beside her best friend Angelina.

"Me too." Oliver Wood stood beside Kate. Fred and George Weasley stood up, but Harry saw the panicked look on Mrs. Weasley's face.

"I think this is enough," Harry said quickly, giving Fred and George a look. They quickly glanced at their mother, whose fists were clenched so hard that her knuckles were white. Her cheeks were stark white, and two silent tears were trickling down her face. The twins sat down quickly.

"Harry?" asked Ginny Weasley, dreading the answer to her question. "Harry, who's the first member? You said Miss Figg was the second."

"Me, of course," said Harry. This was not taken well by the assembly.

"Absolutely not!" thundered Sirius Black.

"You can't!" shrieked Lisa Turpin. Various other people followed their example, until Harry raised his wand. It let out a loud bang, and the room fell silent.

"In my absence," he said, saying each word clearly, "I am leaving leadership in the hands of Professor Albus Dumbledore. Co-leadership will be given to Professor Minerva McGonagall. Once I get back, I will resume Leadership, assuming it is needed." Harry stopped. "Mission Team, go and pack," he ordered. "We leave first thing tomorrow." The seven others left the room silently. Harry faced everyone else. "I'm sorry," he said, "But I have to go with them. I cannot send others into danger and stay safe myself." Harry looked around sadly. "I'll see you all when I get back. This meeting is over." Harry walked quickly to the door, opened it, walked out, and shut it.

Harry hurried down the corridor. He was already packed, and he knew everyone else was as well. It was regulation that everyone keep spare packs already filled with regulation equipment, as well as one with specialized equipment, if one had a specialty. 

Harry reached his rooms and grabbed his pack. He also picked up a list and scanned through it quickly, copying certain things onto another sheet of parchment. He then reviewed his list, and nodded, satisfied. Harry took his things to the overnighting room. Whenever a Mission Team left early in the morning, they all slept in the same room to reduce confusion when they needed to leave. Harry claimed a bed, and dropped his pack onto it. He looked at his list once again.

__

Specialties—Mission Team Alpha

Harry Potter – flying, protection spells

Ronald Weasley – Hexes, curses

Hermione Granger – Hexes, curses, elemental spells, potions, first aid, communications, protection spells

Angelina Johnson – Protection spells, elemental spells, flying

Arabella Figg – Rituals, blocking spells, flying, languages

Kate Bell – Physical self-defense, stealth, weapons, flying

Sirius Black – Stealth (Animagi)

Oliver Wood – flying, fire spells, elemental summoning

"Hey, Harry." Oliver and Kate entered the room, and claimed beds as far from each other as possible. They were both glaring at the other, eyes smoking. Harry sighed. Just what he needed. Oliver's temper was fairly hard to provoke, but he was easily irritated. Kate, on the other hand, had a fiery temper that had a tendency to go off at the worst possible times. And now they were mad at each other- Harry sighed again. Once Ron and Hermione had admitted their feelings for each other, it had given the Resistance one less thing to bet about. Then they had noticed the way Oliver and Kate acted around each other...

"Hey, Oliver. Harry, Kate," Ron entered, looking slightly flushed. He dumped his stuff on a bed next to Harry's. He noticed the way Oliver and Kate were glaring at each other and smirked. A moment later Hermione walked in, looking flushed as well. She and Ron blushed when they looked at each other, but Hermione took a bed next to Ron's anyway. Angelina and Sirius entered next. Sirius took the other bed next to Harry, and Angelina took the bed next to Kate's. Arabella entered last. She took a bed next to Angelina without a word, and sat down. She pulled out a thin leather bound book, and began to read. Angelina and Kate began talking in hushed tones, and Sirius left to go say his goodbyes. Ron grabbed Hermione and Harry and pulled them down to his family's rooms. They were all gathered in Mr. And Mrs. Weasley's room, looking grim. When the three entered, though, Mrs. Weasley burst into tears.

"I'm sorry, Mum," said Ron. "This is just something I have to do."

"I-I-I-I've just got you back!" sobbed Mrs. Weasley. "And now you're leaving again!"

"It can't be helped," Ron said guiltily, looking at the floor uneasily. "I have to, Mum."

"I know, dear," Mrs. Weasley said, wiping her eyes. Mr. Weasley's eyes looked unusually bright. Fred and George were standing to the side, looking grim. Charlie was sitting with his head in his hands, and Bill was standing in the corner, arms crossed, biting his lip. Ginny was looking a little angry and sullen. She glared at Harry, and he looked away. He knew why she was angry with him.

He'd forbidden her to go.

Before the assembly, he had taken her aside.

"Ginny, I'm going to ask for some people to do something with me," he'd said quietly. "And you cannot volunteer. I forbid it. Your mum would kill me. Don't do it." 

Ginny was a big girl now, and able to take care of herself. However, Mrs. Weasley didn't think so, and was always worrying about her 'little girl'. If Harry had allowed Ginny to come with him, he didn't think Mrs. Weasley would ever speak to him again. Plus, Ginny was like a little sister to him. He didn't want to see her get hurt...

"Harry," said Charlie, taking his face from his hands. Harry look at the man, whose blue eyes looked dead. Charlie got up and took Harry into the hallway. "Protect Ron," he said in a low voice. "Please. For Mum. She wouldn't be able to take losing him again, so soon after getting him back. After Percy..." Charlie trailed off. Harry didn't need him to finish his sentence. He remembered how Mrs. Weasley had acted after Percy... passed away.

Her eyes had been dead for weeks. Her skin went yellow, and her skin hung off her frame. Her hair had lain matted to her head, unwashed for weeks. The circles under her eyes were a vivid purple, as though someone had hit her.

Harry nodded.

"I'll do my best to protect him." Charlie nodded, satisfied. As soon as they entered, Fred grabbed Harry's arm and pulled him back outside.

"Two things," he said in a low voice. "Oliver Wood and Kate Bell... don't let them talk to each other too much. They're like Hermione and Ron before they realized what was going on. Second," here Fred's eyes narrowed, "Angelina." Harry groaned inwardly.

"Fred, it was her decision. I can't make her not go," he said awkwardly.

"I know that. I'm not asking you to make her stay. However," he said, "Please... _please _don't let anything happen to her." Harry nodded. George came out into the hallway and put a hand on his brother's shoulder.

"It's ok, Fred," he said. "I know I'd feel the same if Alicia was going..." he steered his twin back inside, and Harry followed. He was immediately swamped by hugs, first from Mrs. Weasley, then Mr. Weasley, then by Bill and Charlie, and finally he was tackled by Ginny.

"Don't die. Don't let anyone else die," she whispered into his ear as she released him. He stumbled back a step, and nodded to her.

"It's pretty late," Ron said awkwardly. "I think we'd better go get some sleep, don't you?" Hermione nodded, and Mrs. Weasley clasped her in a fond hug.

"Stay safe, dear," she said, and Hermione was then passed around and hugged by all the Weasley clan. Harry hurried into the hall, followed closely by Ron and Hermione. For a moment no one spoke as they walked silently through the hallways. Then, out of nowhere:

"Race you!" Ron yelled, and he took off down the corridor as fast as his long legs would take him. Harry made an undignified noise and sprinted after him, Hermione bringing up the rear. The sound of their laughter echoed throughout the hallways. They arrived back at the overnighting room panting, faces flushed and eyes sparkling. Ron won, of course, both because of his head start and his long legs. Hermione and Harry tied, because Hermione had tackled Harry at the last minute. Harry tripped, his arm falling onto the doorway as Hermione jumped off his back and raced inside. Oliver looked up from his book, raising an eyebrow. Ron waved at him cheerfully, then grabbed Hermione and began tickling her. Oliver shook his head and went back to his book. Harry stumbled in and threw a quill at Ron, which hit his head and bounced to the floor. Hermione scooped it up quickly.

"Harry, you really shouldn't waste these, they're very rare, especially this goose kind, we're not able to get as many as we once were..." She shut up when Ron grabbed the quill from her and thwacked her on the head with it. Harry grabbed the quill from Ron, smacked him on the head with it, and went over to his own bed and sat on it, brandishing the quill threateningly at his two other friends. They glared at him, then both sat down on Ron's bed, crossed their arms, and continued glaring at him.

"Ah, Harry?" He turned. It was Angelina. "I was wondering if you were going to brief us...?" Harry jumped up, looking guilty. 

"Oh, right, sorry," he said, grabbing a few sheets of parchment and going to stand at one end of the room, near the door. "Okay, people, listen here for a sec," he said, looking through his parchments. "Okay, we're going to be taking broomsticks and flying most of the way, but low to the ground, so we won't be spotted by Muggles. We're going to mostly be going by night, but tomorrow I want to cover as most ground as possible." He looked at his list. "Okay, each of you has a specialty that you're particularly good at. Concentrate on what you're good at and don't worry if you're not too good at something, chances are someone else can do it well, so you don't need to worry about it. That's pretty much all. We've got one tent that can fit all of us in it, so we don't need to worry about that. That's pretty much all. Get good sleep tonight so we can make it as far as possible tomorrow." He headed back to his bed and got in, robes and all. Everyone else followed suit after saying goodnight to one another, and Harry clicked the main light off.

The next day, at 6:00 in the morning, everyone was awake but bleary eyed (except for Oliver Wood, who was used to getting up this early for Quidditch practice, even though the last time he'd had practice was a good seven years ago). Angelina and Kate were leaning on each other, yawning, and even Sirius looked a little more ragged than usual. Harry handed out steaming beakers of a rich brown liquid, and once everyone had drank theirs, they began to perk up.

"What was that?" Hermione asked. "It's really working. Was it that chocolate potion I showed you a while ago?"

"No," Harry said, grinning. "I'd thought you would've known, Hermione, you were a muggle. It's hot cocoa." Hermione looked surprised, then laughed.

"Everyone got their broomsticks?" Harry asked, raising his voice so everyone could hear him. Everyone shouted an affirmative, and they all headed directly up the stairs to the exit. Harry signed everyone out, and looked at the assembled crowd who were watching their loved ones go. Fred and Angelina were making eyes at each other, Oliver Wood and Kate Bell were glaring at each other, Ron and Hermione had linked hands, and were both waving sadly to Mrs. Weasley. She was crying, and was being held by Mr. Weasley. Tears dripped off his long nose as he waved goodbye to his son, to Harry, and to Hermione. Harry gave everyone gathered a final wave, and then walked out of the door onto the muggle street outside. Everyone followed him, and soon there were eight figures clad in black robes with large camouflage backpacks and covered broomsticks on the muggle street. Harry waved his wand, and they all quickly slung Invisibility cloaks over each other. Harry shared one with Oliver, Angelina and Kate shared another, then Hermione and Ron shared Ron's personal one, and Sirius and Arabella shared the last one. They had gone to Hogwarts together, and apparently they had a lot to discuss.

"Right," Harry whispered. "We set out walking until we get to the woods. Then, we lose the cloaks and use the brooms to fly through the trees. We set camp around 2 am. Any questions?" A hissed chorus of "no"s was heard, and the band began walking towards their destiny.

Towards Lord Voldemort. 

~~~

**A/N:** Mwahaha, I am an evil person. I love cliffhangers... well, when *I* write them, I love them. When other people write them I tear my hair out in frustration and anger. Wow... I love Ani Difranco with a passion. Her stuff is awesome. Anyway... oh yes. If you'd like to read something that I wrote while on a sugar high, read "Why Lilith Should Never Be Given Caffeine". It's Lord of the Rings, but you don't need to know about LotR to read it. And for the record, I LOVED THE LOTR MOVIE!!!! LEGOLAS IS PREEEEETTTTY... anyway. I also love the movie "Willow", which you should all go see. Now. Do it. The signature quote is just something I like... the song's not so bad either. I have an Ophelia complex... Gotta go before mom comes and finds me not sleeping... which I should be doing, seeing as how tomorrow I have exams. 

--Lilith

"Ophelia drowned in the water, crushed by her own weight

And Hitler loved little blue-eyed boys and it drove him to hate

Birds always grow silent before the night descends

Because nature has a funny way of breaking what does not bend" --Jewel, "Innocence Maintained"


	4. Journeys

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Darkness Supreme

Chapter four

By Lilith

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A/N: 'Kay, I redid some of this chapter, trying to make it less rushed towards the end and taking out an uncharacteristic thinking thingie... I honestly don't know where that came from, I think I was doing a sleepy and bad job of foreshadowing. Anyway, changed it. Unfortunately, I will not be posting chapter 5 for some time, because of a bad case of writer's block. I am doing my best... in the meantime, you can e-mail me (though I would prefer you didn't threaten to physically harm me, Lanz does that enough for all of you combined, trust me) at LilithAD. At AOL. I can't write it all together, or my computer turns it into that annoying blue linky thing. So... you can all go read my insane fics! The one called 'Why Lilith Should Never Be Given Caffeine' is really... hyperactively weird. It's LotR, but there is a kind of Harry Potter cameo... thing... And the other is a list of hot people. I dunno, I'm random. I also don't know why I'm still writing these notes, when I should be writing chapter 5. Or attempting to write chapter 5.

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Lady Win: Lol... no, I know you don't hate me! (Well, I *hoped* you didn't...) Thank you for your critique, I changed stuff on this chapter to make it run a little smoother. If you wanna review the changes, you can do so when I post chapter 5. Which I am afraid will not happen for a bit, because I have writer's block...

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Taboo: I'm sorry for not updating! ::sniff:: school... and stuff... and not failing have been keeping me busy, plus my horrible writer's block. Argh. Anger.

Ohh, major score! I didn't fail ANYTHING!!! Not even French! Ooh, much happiness! 

~~~ 

Harry looked up towards the sky. Deep blue clouds were forming, and the air was becoming heavy. He looked around at his fellow teammates. At first glance they looked fine after a good two weeks of hard flying, but Harry noticed that there were dark circles under their eyes and Hermione was having trouble with keeping her broom steady from yawning so much. Harry bit his lip, then looked at his map. A stark red line streaked though symbols that meant 'trees', 'mountains', 'muggle towns', and many others.

_If we keep up at this pace, we'll reach Hogwarts in two months time, but will that be enough time to figure out how to infiltrate the place? They can't keep up at this pace, the normal missions only last two weeks... _Harry frowned, and poked at the map with his wand. Another line, this one blue and more jagged than the first red one, outlined itself on the map. Harry squinted at them, then nodded to himself, satisfied. He put the map back inside his cloak.

"We're going to set camp in about an hour," he called back, keeping his voice just low enough so that they could all hear him, but his voice wouldn't echo through the trees. Various affirmatives reached his ears, and Harry sped up, hoping to gain more ground. However, about forty-five minutes later, the eight flying figures stumbled upon a nice clearing, just perfect for their purposes. Harry called a halt, and everyone dismounted and set about setting up camp. Hermione magically set up the tents, Oliver built fires, Sirius slid into dog shape and went off to hunt for some meat, Arabella got the other food out, and Ron collected kindling and logs. It was Angelina and Kate's day to do the dishes and clean up, so they simply relaxed while the others worked. Harry set up protection spells around the camp, using anti-muggle spells then moving on to the ones that would make large animals run away. After that, he moved on to the spells of brute force, that would simply gather the energy of a magical attack and use it to strengthen the shields. 

"Back!" called Sirius, morphing into a human once more. He carried two rabbits in his large hands, and he was grinning widely. Kate looked at the rabbits distastefully then began to search for the dried soup that was kept in her pack. 

"Ooh, rabbit, my favorite," called Oliver sarcastically. He jumped over the logs set up around the fire as benches and headed over to Kate's pack. Sirius, for all that he was old enough to be Oliver's father, made a face at Oliver for insulting his rabbits. Kate moved over so that Oliver could kneel by her pack too, and look around for the dried soup. Everyone pretended not to notice as Kate and Oliver grabbed the same package of soup, and how they blushed and jerked their fingers away from the other. Hermione chose that moment to declare that the tents were set up. Sirius began loudly humming, and pulled a knife out from his robes and began skinning the rabbits, everyone else looked carefully away from him. Sirius, who was the one of them who had had to live off the land more times than he cared to count, was the only one who was comfortable with skinning rabbits. The others busied themselves with other tasks.

Soon the rabbits were cooked, and everyone besides Oliver and Kate was eating the warm meat. Those two were eating the dried soup, which had been mixed with boiling water to moisten the noodles and to absorb the powdered flavoring.

"Genius of those muggles, really," said Oliver, looking at the package of the soup in wonder. "Ramen. Who would have ever thought of this in our world?" Kate snorted, then laughed. Oliver grinned at her, then they both remembered they were supposed to be angry at the other, and looked away. 

Angelina leaned back against the log, her dinner already finished, and looked up at the treetops. She could vaguely see the stars through the leaves... They were twinkling. The skies had cleared since the earlier, and now the night was crisp and cold. 

"Angelina?" She turned to Harry, who was looking at her oddly.

"Yeah?" 

"We can do the dishes now," Kate told her, still trying to avoid looking at Oliver. Angelina nodded and got up. Kate collected the dishes while Angelina performed the water summoning spell into a hole that had been dug in the ground. It had been Sealed into place, which prevented any of the dirt from mixing with the water. Kate dumped the dishes in, and she and Angelina set up the quick self-washing spells they had been taught. The others sprawled on their backs, looking up at the barely visible stars Angelina had been looking at. 

"Hermione?" Ron asked quietly, but loud enough so the others could hear.

"Yes?"

"What's the position of the stars that V-V-V... You-Know-Who needs for his ritual?"

"Well... I'm not exactly sure."

"Do you know what ritual he's going to do?" Kate asked softly. She had sprawled herself near the fire, long limbs flung out about her, her long legs lying across Angelina's. 

"Er... well, not exactly," Hermione admitted.

"What?!" Angelina sat up, surprised. "You mean Severus didn't tell you?"

"It's... sort of an improvised ritual," Hermione defended. "There really isn't any precedent. What we _do _know," here her tone reminded Harry very much of the late Percy Weasley, "is that if we interrupt the ritual, that is, if he is forced to stop the ritual, You-Know-Who will be killed. Then, once we destroy his wand, he will be gone forever." There was silence around the campfire, which a few minutes later was broken by Sirius' snores. There was quiet laughter from everyone, and Ron kicked Sirius in the back of the head.

"Wha-?!" Sirius woke with a start, looking around sleepily. Everyone laughed, and Harry got up, yawning. 

"I'm going to sleep," he said. Sirius got up quickly and followed him. Ever since the journey began, Sirius had made a point of always staying near Harry, like a bodyguard. In the huge ten-man tent, Sirius had moved into one of the rooms next to Harry's, so he could protect him.

"Least I can do for your parents," he said gruffly when Harry had asked him why he bothered. 

"See you in the morning, Harry," Hermione called from her place on the ground. Her head rested on Ron's shoulder, and his arm wrapped around her loosely. They looked comfortable and happy. Harry's heart sank as he thought what he was forcing them all into... 

"Harry?" It was Sirius. "You gonna go inside, or just stand in the doorway all night?"

"Sorry," Harry mumbled, and ducked into the tent, followed closely by his godfather.

Angelina watched them go.

"Huh. Harry's gotten rather introspective," she commented, sticking her hands close to the fire to warm them. Kate shrugged.

"We've all changed," she said. "We haven't been with more than three other people at a time for God knows how long. Except for the week where we're back at SH [Subspace Hideout], we pretty much just have our Mission Teams."

"True," Oliver piped up. "But then again, it could be a blessing we're all out so much."

"How's that?" Angelina asked. Kate had gone curiously silent.

"If we're cooped up at SH for too long, we'll all start ripping each other's throats out."

"True," Kate said. Oliver fell silent awkwardly. There was a sudden giggle from Hermione and Ron's side of the fire, and then a shushing noise. The three looked at each other with raised eyebrows.

"Hey," Angelina said suddenly. "Where's Arabella?"

"Sleeping," came a muffled voice. The three peered around, then looked up, to see Arabella lying on a tree limb that jutted out over the fire. She had a pillow and a blanket up on the thick branch, and looked perfectly content. 

"Um..." Angelina seemed at a loss for words.

"Why?" Kate asked, trying to hold back her laughter.

"'Cause," Arabella replied. She grinned sleepily down at the three of them.

"You are so weird." Arabella raised an eyebrow at Kate's assessment of her character.

"Probably, yeah," she replied. Another giggle from the other side of the fire made Arabella sigh. "You have no idea how lucky you three are," she said. "You can't see what they're doing."

"Do we want to?" Oliver asked.

"They're making up for about ten years of denial," Arabella replied. A muffled "Hey!" that sounded like Ron's voice reached their ears, and Hermione stood up, hair ruffled and lip gloss smeared.

"I'm going to bed," she said with as much dignity as one could muster when they have just been caught making out with their boyfriend. There were assorted giggles from the three lounging by the fire as Hermione walked into the tent, and Ron scuttled very quickly after her. The snorts of laughter from the three by the fire were only increased by Ron's loud "Stuff a sock in it!" and Hermione's response of "Ron!"

"Oh, that was priceless!" Kate snorted, rolling on the ground, overcome by a fit of laughter. Angelina was pounding the ground with her fist, and Oliver wiped tears from his eyes as his body shook with laughter. Angelina noted with increased amusement that Kate had rolled so that she and Oliver were facing each other on the ground. Their faces were very close, and for a moment, they both stopped laughing and stared at the other. Angelina looked up at the stars and pointedly cleared her throat. She heard Arabella giggle as Kate and Oliver moved away from each other so quickly one might have thought the other had been subject to the Curse of the Bogies. 

"I'm going to bed," Angelina yawned. Tonight was the first night the group had been so relaxed. It was probably because they'd actually made camp during the daytime and gotten a good meal. She pitied Kate and Oliver—they both didn't eat red meat, so they'd had to stick with the muggle Ramen stuff. 

"Night," Kate and Oliver said. There was a muffled noise from Arabella's "bed" that was probably a "Good night," so Angelina wished her sweet dreams and stooped into the tent and into her room. She slumped into her bed, and was asleep almost instantly. 

"—MAYBE IF YOU WEREN'T SO DAMN PIGHEADED—"

"PIGHEADED?! ME?! TALK ABOUT THE POT CALLING THE KETTLE BLACK!"

"WHY YOU... YOU... ARGH!" Angelina opened her eyes to the sounds of Kate and Oliver outside the tent. She rolled over in an attempt to go back to sleep, but it was useless.

"WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU!? WHY CAN'T YOU BEHAVE LIKE A NORMAL HUMAN BEING FOR ONCE!?"

Ron and Hermione woke in their separate room and stumbled outside to find Kate and Oliver about ten inches away from each other, screaming. 

"Kind of reminds you of us, doesn't it?" Ron asked. Hermione nodded.

"Oh, the memories of you screaming at me, of me calling you a bloody prat, of you accusing me of fraternizing with the enemy—"

"I've got an idea, Hermione, why don't you shut up?" Ron said jokingly, swatting her head. She mock-sniffed and went to go get the fire started, careful to walk around Kate and Oliver's argument. 

"WILL YOU STOP AND THINK A MINUTE!?" Oliver yelled, grabbing Kate's shoulders. She jerked out of his hands angrily.

"DON'T _TOUCH _ME, YOU PATHETIC WANKER!"

"Well this is a lovely start to the day," Harry said from behind Ron. "Is this a real argument, or is it just a lover's spat?"

"Lover's spat," Ron replied as Arabella sat up yawning on her branch. She suddenly cocked her head to one side, eyes widening. She pulled out her wand and muttered something, and in a puff of smoke she was dressed. 

"SHUT UP!" she yelled, throwing her pillow at Oliver. It hit him squarely in the face, and he stepped back a pace, startled. Kate whirled around, ready to insult Arabella, when she noticed the expression on the woman's face.

Arabella was frowning in concentration. She had one hand up to her ear and was biting her lip worriedly. Suddenly she waved her wand, and in a puff of cherry blossoms she was standing on the ground.

"Dementors!" she hissed. 

The word had the desired affect. Everyone began running around trying to get everything packed away. No one had any desire to fight the Dementors. 

Hermione waved her wand, and in a puff was dressed for the day. She used her magic to take the tent down, and it quickly rolled itself up and stuffed itself back in Hermione's pack. Kate, with a flick of her wand, put the fire out, and with a few hisses of "Accio!" managed to get the food, dishes and silverware into her pack. Oliver scattered the logs around the campsite and made it look as if the only ones who had slept there were animals. Angelina dispersed the water in the washing pit and undid the dirt-holding spell, then in a puff of cherry blossoms was dressed. A few hisses of "Accio!" and eight packs flew through the air to their owners, who pulled them on quickly and grabbed their broomsticks.

"It's too late," Sirius hissed. "They're too close. We're going to have to fight them." Sirius was right. As he spoke, the air grew colder, and depressing thoughts began weighing on the minds of the eight fighters. Harry drew his wand.

"Mount your broomsticks," he whispered. "Everyone who knows the Patronus Charm, get your wands out. Everyone who doesn't, get your wands out anyway, and concentrate on the happiest moment you can think of and yell 'Expecto Patronum'." Harry looked at everyone individually. "Got that?"

"Got it," everyone murmured. 

"I'm going to keep the shields up as long as possible. Everyone, mount your brooms. The Patronus charm can go through the shields, so once the Dementors come into sight, use the charm. Once the shields go down, everyone follow Sirius except Ron, Hermione and Angelina. You three stay with me, we're going to perform _Dementor's Bane_." Harry tugged a strand of hair away from his face and held his wand out in front of him, sweating. Everyone could now clearly hear the ruthless crash of the Dementors as they ploughed through the foliage, hissing. The eight figures stood silent and still, eyes narrowed until Arabella caught sight of a gray robe. 

"Expecto patronum!" she yelled, and a huge silver wildcat spurted from the end of her wand. The wildcat leapt through the shields and stood between the Dementors, which had now fully appeared, and the eight Resistance fighters.

"Expecto patronum!"

"Expecto patronum!" A stag and a feral looking dog joined Arabella's wildcat, Sirius and Harry's contribution. The Dementors stopped moving forwards, hissing in anger at the three animals that barred their way.

"Expecto patronum!" Hermione yelled, concentrating on the moment Ron told her he loved her. A silvery gray blob burst from her wand, and sort of hovered in between the other three animals. Harry's shields suddenly flickered, and went down.

"Go!" Harry yelled. Hermione's weak Patronus flickered and went out as she stopped the spell. Sirius, Oliver, Kate and Arabella raced away on their brooms, their respective Patronus's vanishing in blinks of light. "Get ready!" Harry said, as the Dementors began to inch forwards, sensing that there was only one charm left blocking them. Ron, Hermione and Angelina began to mutter the start to the spells under their breath. As their wands began to glow an angry blue, Harry's Patronus blinked and went out. He leapt back out of the way and began to mutter. The Dementors, sensing that their prey was unprotected, lunged forwards with hisses of glee. Harry's wand began to glow...

The Dementors reached out with their hands, pulling back their hoods...

"_Dementorus Bane!_" screamed Hermione. There was a crack of blue light, and one of the Dementors stumbled, blinked and vanished. The one next to it began to flicker blue, and it fell to the ground, writhing in agony. 

"_Dementorus Bane!_" Ron and Angelina yelled at the same time. Two more of the Dementors vanished, so that there were two left standing, and one writhing on the ground.

"_Dementorus... Bane!_" Harry gasped out. One of the standing Dementors vanished, and the other paused, confused. It sensed it's companions were no longer there.

"Fly!" Angelina yelled. She grabbed Harry, who was pale and shaking, and hoisted him onto her broomstick. She grabbed his broomstick in her free hand, and took off. Ron and Hermione followed closely, their wands still out. The one remaining Dementor looked confused, as it tried to decide which way to go. It finally decided that it better head back, and so, grabbing the robes of it's injured companion, it dragged the wounded Dementor along the ground as it crashed back through the foliage. 

Ron and Hermione were on their brooms, following Angelina. She was being directed by a shaky Harry, whose green eyes closed for longer and longer periods of time every time he blinked. Finally he completely lost consciousness, and Angelina was forced to land.

"Quick! Get him something for revival!" She ordered Hermione, who gulped and quicky began rummaging in her overlarge pack. Angelina closed her eyes and rested her chin on the tip of her wand.

"_Sirius! Sirius, come in!"_

"Angelina?"

"Oh, thank heavens! Yes, it's me. We've driven the Dementors off, but Harry's used up all of his energy. I had to stop. Where are you?"

"I don't know. Keep the spell up, we'll find you. Is Harry going to be alright?"

"I think so. Hermione's got a potion that should revive him."

"Alright. Keep in contact. Can you hear us?"

"No."

"Alright, I'm going to hone in on your signal. Keep the spell up for as long as you can."

"Alright."

Hermione carefully lifted a glass beaker out of her pack, and tapped it twice with her wand, and muttered "_Regosia!_" under her breath. The beaker began to fill with a pinkish liquid. When it was about halfway full, Hermione tapped the beaker twice and it stopped filling. She lifted it carefully to Harry's lips, and pulled the rubber stopper off the top. Ron lifted Harry's head up, and carefully parted his lips. Hermione placed the beaker near to his mouth and poured a drop of the pink liquid down his throat. It was a clear pink color, and it looked rather like a liquid gemstone. After the first drop, Harry coughed and opened his eyes weakly. Hermione pressed the beaker to his lips and tipped it into his mouth. He quickly swallowed it all, and the color came back to his face and his eyes resumed their normal green shine. Harry sat up quickly, and looked around.

"Where are we?" He asked, puzzled. Hermione and Ron both shrugged.

"Angelina's in contact with Sirius, I think she's trying to tell him where we are," said Ron. Harry glanced over at Angelina, who had her wand pressed against her chin and had a look of concentration on her face. A sudden crashing noise was heard from the forest, and the three jumped up, startled. Angelina blinked and pulled her wand away from her chin.

"We're over here!" she yelled loudly, jumping up and down and waving her arms. "Over here! Hi! Sirius!" Ron, Hermione and Harry looked at her like she was crazy. There was a whooshing noise, and Harry yelled in fright. A shower of angry red and gold sparks shot out of his wand. 

"Ow!" The sparks stopped. Oliver stood there, hands in front of his face. His broomstick lay on the ground beside him.

"Ah. Oops," was all Harry could think to say. Kate, Sirius and Arabella flew out of the trees and landed next to Oliver. Kate took one look at him and started cracking up. Oliver removed his hands from in front of his face. His hair was blackened and sticking up, and there was soot all over his face. Kate laughed so hard she accidentally tripped over a large root and fell right into him, landing on top of him as they hit the ground. Oliver looked embarrassed, and Kate simply rolled off of him, still laughing. Arabella giggled into her palm, Sirius looked away with the corners of his mouth twitching, Ron buried his face in Hermione's shoulder, Angelina shook her head in disbelief, and Harry looked guilty. Oliver got up, and Hermione quickly aimed her want at him and trilled something under her breath. The soot that streaked Oliver's face vanished, his hair returned to its normal light brown color, but it still stuck up wildly in every direction. Kate stopped laughing and wiped the tears of her cheeks. She lay on the ground for a moment, then got up, still occasionally snorting with laughter. Oliver glared at her.

"Sorry, Oliver," Harry said guiltily. Oliver shook his head.

"It's alright, Harry," he said. Kate looked at him, and Oliver glared back at her. She dissolved back into laughter. Oliver shook his head, their previous argument apparently forgotten.

"Which way is Hogwarts from here?" asked Sirius, getting everyone back on track. Kate stopped laughing, and Arabella took her hand away from her face, which had been stifling the snorting giggles she'd been having. Harry pulled out his map and tapped it. A large green dot appeared on the map, on top of the jagged blue line that marked their path. Hr frowned.

"We must've gotten a lot farther than I thought," he said. "It's only about a month away, if we travel at the same pace we've been going." Sirius nodded and mounted his broom. "We'd better get going if we want to make it out of England today," Harry concluded, mounting his broom as well. Everyone sighed, and swung their legs over their brooms. With hard kicks to the ground, the eight fighters were off, following Harry once more.

A month and a half later, rain poured down upon the hills and forests surrounding Hogwarts. The castle loomed in the distance, an impressive structure in the clouds. Harry, Oliver, Sirius and Arabella were pressed into the muddy ground, squinting up at the castle.

"I hate seeing it like this," said Arabella with a sigh. Harry, Oliver and Sirius made noises of agreement. Hogwart's once simply impressive and large structure had been warped into twisting towers that reached up towards the sky like gnarled fingers. It was the first structure Lord Voldemort had taken over since his return to power, and he had warped it, making the once powerful school castle into a building of evil. The Pens, which were the place where Lord Voldemort kept his prisoners, was located in the dungeons of the old castle. It was now a terrible sight to behold.

The eight fighters had ridden hard to get there, and had made it in a month and a half, due to the interference of a troublesome giant. They were currently looking for a little place to hole up in, to devise a strategy and to wait out the rainstorm. They had a month and a half to discover a weak spot in Lord Voldemort's defenses, and sneak in on the night of his ritual. Hermione had discovered some vital facts about the ritual.

"He's going to need to be alone. Though he trusts his Death Eaters, he knows there is a traitor among them, and cannot have any of them be near while he becomes invincible."

Harry frowned, and bit his lip. This was definitely going to be hard. In fact, if he wasn't with the group he was with, he would have said it was impossible. 

"There!" Harry was brought back to his current situation with the sound of Oliver's voice. "See those little caves? I used to hide in them when Filch was chasing me or the Weasley twins. They lead into the dungeons, but through a hidden passageway in the rock. No one knew about it." From the look on Sirius' face, the Marauders hadn't known about it either, Harry guessed. "We can hole up there and devise a plan."  
"Good idea," Harry muttered. "Let's get back to the others." The four began to wriggle down the hill, as to avoid being seen by anyone using Crystalgazing to spot them. Crystalgazing was a new form of Divination, only it dealt with the present, not the past of future. It let someone with the gift look through bird's eye view on any scene happening anywhere in the world. Of course, you had to have a certain amount of power to look far away, and you couldn't hear what the people were saying, but it was a good method, partly because you could see people with Invisibility Cloaks. So, this close to the castle, where the crystalgazer wouldn't have to have a lot of power, the rebels were being extremely careful.

Once they were under the cover of the trees, Arabella pouted.

"Look at these robes! This mud'll never come off!" She complained, sighing dramatically. The three men sighed. They had gotten used to Arabella's eccentric habits. She really couldn't care less about the state of her robes, but she needed something to take her mind of their dire position, and so she worried about her clothes. 

"Come on, then," Harry said, trying to wipe some mud off his face. Since his hands were covered in the stuff as well, though, he soon realized trying to get cleaned up was a wasted effort and stopped trying. He led the three others off into the forest, towards the four other members of their group. Sirius was right behind him, followed closely by Oliver. Arabella was somewhat behind, since she was still trying to get mud off her robes.

"What the hell?!" Harry turned quickly and gulped. A rather large and intimidating centaur was dangling Arabella by her ankle. "Will you get off?" the woman yelled angrily. "That is so annoying, if I wanted someone to dangle me upside down I'd ask the Weasley twins! This is just plain rude! What on earth do you think you're doing?" The centaur seemed a bit taken aback by the short woman glaring at him fiercely, hands on her hips, and very much behaving like he was a small child who had done something wrong. Harry stepped forwards uncertainly. 

"Firenze?" he asked, hesitantly. The centaur looked up from his captive suddenly, and stared at Harry with electric blue eyes.

"Harry Potter?" he asked slowly, brushing strands of white blonde hair streaked with dirt out of his eyes.

"Yes," Harry replied. "It's you?" Firenze nodded, looking amazed.

"Potter, what are you doing here? This place is not safe for you," he said, dropping Arabella. She landed with a thump in some bushes, and stumbled to her feet muttering "No, don't worry about me, I'm fine, getting dropped on my head was just what I needed, thanks..."

"Excuse me," Sirius asked sarcastically, "but who are you, and what are you doing here?" Harry winced and tried to shush his overly protective godfather, but Firenze seemed amused by Sirius' overprotective behavior.

"I am Firenze," he said, bowing elegantly and slightly mockingly. "As for what I am doing here, I live here."

"You live here. In the Forbidden Forest. Right next to You-Know-Who's castle," Sirius stated, disbelieving. Firenze simply nodded to each statement, as though it was perfectly believeable. Sirius shook his head and muttered something that sounded suspiciously like "_Centaurs._" Firenze looked at Harry.

"I suppose you are here to face the Dark Lord," he said, frowning at Harry. Harry nodded, not saying anything. "If you need help," he said slowly, as though he might regret this later, "I may be able to do something. To help you." Harry looked at the centaur.

"Well," he said slowly, "If you could organize a meeting? With all the centaurs? So I could speak to them, ask them for help?" Firenze let out a sardonic snort, which might have been a laugh under happier circumstances. 

"I can try, but if you remember, centaurs are not the easiest creatures to convince," Frienze responded. "If you come by around noon tomorrow, I believe they will listen to what you have to say. I cannot promise that they will actually do anything." Harry nodded, as though he had expected that answer.

"Thank you, Firenze," he said meaningfully. "Can you pick up the Telepathy spell?"

"The what?" asked Firenze, confused.

"The spell where I think something at you, and you hear my voice in your head."

"Oh." Firenze nodded. "Yes, I will be able to hear you. Centaurs call that spell by another name."

"Good. I will contact you when I get into the forest, and you will take me to the other centaurs?" Firenze replied with an affirmative, and the four continued on their way with a hasty farewell to the centaur. Arabella was still complaining about being dropped on her head when they reached the makeshift campsite that the other four were staying at.

"Everyone get your packs and your invisibility cloaks on," Harry ordered as he strode towards the small fire. The four sleepy figures around it scurried about, yanking on packs and pairing up. Harry aimed his wand at the smoky fire and extinguished it, then used a wind spell to scatter the ashes. "The cloaks won't help with anyone Crystalgazing, but anyone simply looking out won't be able to see us." At Harry's hand gesture, which quickly disappeared into the folds of the cloak, they quickly hurried to the edge of the forest. The caves were pointed out to everyone, and they made their way up the rocky and muddy hill into the cool, dry caves.

"Phew!" Arabella said, throwing off her and Sirius' cloak. "So, we're finally here."

"Everyone, get settled," Harry instructed. "We can build a small fire to warm up and dry off, but after that it goes out. We need to get some rest for tomorrow." Everyone made an affirmative noise, and got their stuff out. After a hurried meal, they all got into their sleeping bags, with hardly any banter or bickering. After all, it was going to be a long day.

Much, much longer than any of them suspected.

~~~

****

A/N: I'm still sorry about the cliffhanger, which I couldn't change. Just to let you all know, the next few chapters will probably be a little depressing, because for no reason that I can see, I have gotten a little depressed lately. It's nothing that won't go away sooner or later, but my mood seems to have a huge affect on my fics. So, there's that, love you all for reading this! 

--Lilith

"Look at your children

See their faces in golden rays

Don't kid yourself they belong to you

They're the start of a coming race

The earth is a bitch

We've finished our news

Homo Sapiens have outgrown their use

All the strangers came today

And it looks as though they're here to stay" –David Bowie


	5. Discoveries II

****

Darkness Supreme

__

A sleep-deprived fanfiction by Lilith

****

A/N: Gah, well this sucked when I first posted it, then Lady Win pointed out my errors, and I think I fixed them so it's better now. Grr... must go do something Cyndi Lauper-ish with my hair. Gah. Going now... *sings* Oh girls, they wanna have fun, oh girls just wanna have... good enough, for you it's, good enough, for me, its good enough... its good enough for meee!! Oh ya yea yea yea yea.... GOONIES!!! Weee!

****

Lady Win: You're right. I realized that I never made it clear exactly what Harry ran off to do... which wasn't to find Voldie. And I never explained the stairs. Gahh, what would I do without you... **sigh**

~~~

Ron was awakened by a bloodcurdling scream. The lanky redhead shot to his feet faster than he would have previously thought possible and looked wildly around for the origin of the scream. Another shrill scream pierced the fog in his brain, and Ron realized who the voice belonged to.

"Hermione!" he yelled, running towards where he'd heard the shriek of terror, but someone was much faster than he was. Kate might have been a bit shorter than Ron, but her legs were longer and her reflexes were better. Kate reached Hermione before Ron, and placed the weakened woman's head on her lap, supporting it. Hermione's nose was bleeding, and it looked as though all her blood had drained from her face.

"What's wrong?" Ron asked, kneeling at her side quickly and taking her hand. Hermione's breaths were shallow and her eyes were wide and glassy. "Hermione?" Ron asked, fear suddenly grasping his heart as he remembered a story about You-Know-Who killing someone with his mind...

"Ungh!" Hermione made an odd noise and sat up, grasping her chest as though she had nothing left in her lungs and was trying to suck in every bit of air in the cave. "Harry..." she managed to gasp out. Ron tried to hide his hurt look as the black-haired man knelt down by Hermione's side.

"Here," he said quickly. "What happened?"

"Severus... Severus..." Hermione gasped, blood spilling from the corners of her mouth. She wiped it away, annoyed. "Ritual is... _tonight_..." Harry's green eyes widened.

"_What_!?" several people managed to gasp at once. Hermione grabbed her wand from the floor by her knee and pointed it at her chin, obviously fed up with not being able to get enough air to talk.

:_The Death Eaters were told the wrong date for the ritual! It's tonight! He's sent all of them away, on "missions", and He's there alone! Severus found out! It's tonight! Go! Start preparing!_: Hermione's thought-voice boomed out into all of their minds, frantic and panicky, and she nodded her head, gesturing frantically. Harry shot up and bolted, grabbing an invisibility cloak as he ran and vanishing out the cave entrance. His mindvoice echoed back into everyone's heads, making them wince at it's volume.

:_I'm going to the centaurs to see if they'll help, Angelina, you're in charge, Sirius STAY THERE, Oliver take them up the stairs you told me about to the dungeons._:

"Harry," Oliver said aloud, knowing Harry could hear the thought-feedback, "The shorter route's caved in, we've got to take the long way." [A/N: Thought feedback it when you think what you're saying at the moment. Harry is hearing Oliver think what Oliver's saying out loud.]

:_Fine, just get yourselves up there. If I can get the centaurs to help, we'll come in through the front door. If not, I'll come through the front door anyway. Hurry up and get moving. Hermione, what time's the ritual?:_

"Nine o'clock... PM," Hermione gasped, still trying to catch her breath.

_:Get to wherever Voldemort is performing the ritual by 8:30. Okay, I'm by the forest, and I'm going to call Firenze. Get moving!: _Harry's voice stopped echoing into everyone's minds, and Angelina immediately stood up and took charge.

"Alright, Ron, get Hermione into the back of the cave," Angelina's ordered. "Everyone, stash your things in a discreet location. Quickly!" 

Ron supported Hermione's head and wiped the sweat off her face with a piece of his sleeve. He wiped the blood from her mouth and eyes and from the cut on her head she'd gotten when she'd fallen.

"What happened?" Ron asked quietly, wiping a smear of dirt off of Hermione's nose. She coughed and took a deep breath.

"I was trying to contact Severus, up in the castle, but he wasn't there. I searched for him... he's over somewhere in north Scotland. He told me that You-Know-Who lied to the Death Eaters... the ritual is tonight... he's sent them all away on little "missions", but Severus found out for us." Hermione coughed, a little blood coming out of her mouth and dribbling down the corners. Ron hastily wiped it away.

"What's wrong?" he asked, worried. "Why are you coughing up blood?" Hermione gave him a weak smile.

"My contact with Severus was cut." Off Ron's bewildered look, she explained, breathing deeply. "Let's say your mind is rubber and round, and when you mindlink with someone across that great a distance, your mind has to stretch into a line. When you break the link, it comes back and forms a ball again. Mine was cut, so it snapped back, shocking me. I'll be fine for now, nothing really bad happened." Hermione sat up, wincing slightly at the gash on her head, and smiled weakly. Ron tapped his wand against her head, and the ripped skin closed, forming instant scar tissue. Hermione looked surprised. 

"It's a new spell," he explained. "Madam Pomfrey taught me before I left. You're still bleeding on the inside, but it'll just bruise. You won't loose any more blood." 

"Ron! Move it!" Angelina snapped from the back of the cave. Ron turned to see that the others were standing by the back wall of the cave, which had opened to reveal stairs carved into the rock. Ron turned back to Hermione. "Think you can stand? We're moving out," he said. Hermione nodded and took Ron's hand. He helped her stand. Once she was on her feet, Ron slung her arm over his shoulder and helped her into the door that was carved skillfully into the wall of the cave. Once the two of them were through, the walls snapped shut again, plunging the companions into darkness.

"_Lumos_," Arabella muttered. Bright light flooded on to reveal the staircase sloping violently upwards. The stairs were small, narrow and steep. Everyone looked accusingly at Oliver. He shrugged and let out a sheepish smile. 

"I didn't remember it being so steep," he said meekly. Kate snorted and muttered something that sounded like 'Typical...' Angelina sighed.

"Alright, everyone take off your packs. Just bring your wands, your cloaks and your broomsticks. We'll leave the other stuff here, and come back for it." She shrugged off her pack and let it fall onto the dusty floor. Arabella dropped her pack and began rolling up the sleeves on her robes, which slid promptly back down her arms. She scowled at her robes, and pushed them back up. They slid down. Kate shook her head in amusement at the petite black haired witch as Arabella began to curse at her sleeves loudly and in several different languages. Oliver dropped his pack on the floor and began to crack every part of his body, working his way up from his knees to his neck. Kate looked at him, one eyebrow raised. Sirius dropped his pack silently and secured his wand in a concealed pocket of his robes, then transformed into the large black dog Harry, Ron and Hermione jokingly called 'Snuffles' after some adventure in their Fourth Year at Hogwarts. Hermione's pack was being carried by Ron, who quickly dropped both bags and let Hermione sit on the steps. She was breathing heavily and quickly wiped away some blood that had gathered at the corner of her mouth. Angelina took a deep, nervous breath.

"Alright, everyone. We're going up, into the Pens." She bit her lip. "We're going to free the prisoners."

No one spoke. Finally, Sirius transformed back into a human.

"Have you gone completely insane?" he wanted to know. "Do you know how well those cells are protected?" Sirius fingered a long scar that ran from his biceps to his wrist. It was a livid purple color, and obviously reminded him of something he'd rather forget.

"I know," Angelina replied calmly. Her chocolate-colored skin looked ashy and pale, and she was still biting her lip. "We have to do something," she said. "Harry's not going to be back for a while, he's got to talk to the centaurs. We can't just sit around, we have to try to free some of those people up there. If, of course, there's anything left to save." A silence fell on the group. Most of the prisoners in the Pens didn't exactly hang onto their sanity for the longest of times. "Well," Angelina said after a minute of silence, "_I'm _going up. If any of you want to help, by all means, come along. Those of you who wish to stay, I'm not stopping you." She tossed a braid over her shoulder and started up the stairs, dragging her broomstick behind her. The ceiling was far too low and jagged to risk flying. Oliver and Kate looked at each other for a split second, then followed. Arabella looked at the others and marched up after them, after aiming a glare at Sirius. He growled and turned to Hermione and Ron.

"Well? Are you two going?" he asked, his voice low and dangerous. Hermione struggled to her feet.

"I am," she replied. Ron bit his knuckle and looked apprehensive. Sirius looked at him.

"I'm not sure it's the best idea," he said slowly, "because there are all sorts of alarms on those cells. Wouldn't it tip V-V-V... You-Know-Who if all of a sudden those alarms went off?" Angelina turned around on the stairs.

"Maybe," she said. "But not if Kate here can disconnect them." Ron looked at Kate, startled. "She's an excellent lockpick and thief. Maybe she can help with the alarms." Kate shrugged.

"I can always try," she said. Ron bit his knuckle, then helped Hermione up. The two of them wordlessly started up the steep, dark stairs. Sirius snarled to himself.

_Shit, _he thought. _This crazy plan is never going to work. _Sirius had known all along that this mission was futile, but he'd done his best to protect Harry and the others, and now they were throwing it all away. He sighed and shifted into dog form. Sirius would protect them as much as he could, for Lily and James. He padded up the stairs after the others.

Hermione was having trouble getting up the stairs. The bump on her head was making her woozy, and it was hard to estimate exactly where the next step was going to be. Ron was helping her as much as he could, but they were lagging dangerously behind. Sirius had padded up behind Hermione and was supporting her as much as he could, but she was still lagging. Finally she just sat down on the stair, panting and wiping blood away from her mouth. 

"Go on," she rasped, her voice nearly lost between gasps for breath. "I'll be fine, I really just need to catch my breath and heal some of these scratches." She pushed Ron weakly away. "Go on, I'll be fine," she insisted. "You can't stay here with me."

"I _have_ to stay with you," he said stubbornly. Hermione sighed. 

"Sirius, talk to him," she said. "Ron, you can't. Look, I'll be useless in a fight anyway, you'd just get all protective. I can take care of myself here and make my way up. It's fine, there's nothing here!" Hermione glared at Ron. He glared right back. Sirius transformed.

"Ron, Hermione's right," he said slowly. "There's nothing down here that could hurt her. Besides, Hermione, you're an expert at everything there is to know." He tugged on Ron's arm. "Come on." Ron sighed and looked into Hermione's eyes. She rolled hers.

"Honestly, Ron! You're treating me like some priceless doll! I'll be fine by myself!" Ron looked at Hermione sternly.

"You're much more precious than any doll," he said sincerely. Hermione blushed scarlet and Sirius made a gagging noise.

"_If _you're ready, we've lost sight of the others," Sirius said, his voice half-sarcastic and half-saddened. "Ron, she's going to be fine." Ron took Hermione's hand, squeezed it in his, and then began to walk slowly up the stairs again. She waved at him and blew him a kiss. Sirius patted her head fondly, then transformed and padded up the stairs hurriedly after Ron.

Angelina wiped dust out of her eyes and blinked, trying to keep her watering eyes open. Behind her, Arabella was muttering to herself about something, Kate and Oliver were arguing in between deep breaths, Sirius was panting and Ron was making sad noises in the back of his throat so no once would hear. He had been doing this ever since he'd caught up with them, about three hours ago, and had left Hermione about three hours before that. It had taken them a while to catch up. Ron obviously didn't know Angelina had very good hearing, or he would have stopped the annoying sad noises.

Suddenly, Angelina noticed that there were no stairs in front of her anymore. She blinked stupidly at the ground for a moment before looking up and realizing that this was the top of the staircase, and the blank wall in front of her was the door Oliver had told her about.

"Okay, we're at the top," Angelina panted. "Let's rest a moment... just to catch our breath... then we'll go through." Everyone flopped onto the tiny ledge and began breathing heavily.

"Well," Arabella said after a few minutes, "What exactly is our plan?"

"Ah..." everyone looked at Angelina, who muttered something. 

"What?" Sirius asked.

"I don't really have a plan," she said sheepishly. "I just figured... we go in, free the prisoners, that sort of thing." Sirius nodded. 

"And do you know what time it is?" he asked, slightly sarcastically. Angelina performed a spell with her wand, which showed a glowing clock. It was nearly six o'clock.

"How come it took us so long?" Angelina snapped angrily. Oliver looked sheepish. 

"Um. Well, I used the other staircase," he said quietly. "I told Harry we'd have to take the longer staircase, I thought you could hear..."

Angelina slapped her forehead and groaned. "This changes things. Hermione said the ritual would take place around nine o'clock... so that gives us about three hours. Less, because we've got to find our way upstairs."

"Let's just go in," Arabella said, rolling up her sleeves again. "Better to get it over with. He probably already knows we're coming anyway." Angelina rolled her eyes (and Arabella's sleeves fell down again).

"Thanks for that reassuring outlook," she said sarcastically. Arabella bobbed her head in response. "Alright, let's just get inside. We'll worry about everything once we get inside and see how everything works out. Okay?"

Everyone murmured their affirmatives, with Kate muttering "You mean we'll burn that bridge when we get to it..." and Oliver kicking her gently in the shin. Oliver then got up and placed his wand against the door and muttered something in Latin. The doors slid apart noiselessly. Everyone got up and walked inside quietly, Angelina and Oliver in the lead. Sirius had become a dog again. He gave a small bark and led them down one passageway, which presumably led to the Pens.

After many twisting corridors the remaining rebels were beginning to doubt Sirius's sense of direction. The seemed to be going in intricate circles, which was not a good thing. Finally, however, Sirius shifted back into his human self and motioned for them to be silent.

"Pens are through this door," he hissed in a low voice. "There's an alarm on the door."

"Kate? This is your territory," Angelina whispered. Kate grinned and gave a mock salute and slid over to the door. First she pressed her ear up to the door and tapped it once with her wand and nodded to herself. She quickly tapped the door again and a small metal panel appeared near the bottom of the door. Kate slid it open happily, and Oliver heard her saying in a soft voice to herself "I haven't had a challenge like this in years!"

Kate found a knot of criss-crossed strings inside the panel and happily placed her wand in the center and closed her eyes.

Small lightnings began to dance across Kate's skin, focusing on her wand. The woman began to sweat slightly, a small sheen on her skin. Kate bit her lip, and began to look a little worried. She placed her other hand on her wand, presumably to keep it steady, because a moment ago the thing had started to vibrate violently. Kate's arms jerked as she tried to keep the wand in place. Her hands began to smoke, the lightnings crackled through her body and her eyes flew open. They were glowing an unnatural blue instead of her usual dark brown color, and were laced with small lightning bolts. Her skin went unnaturally pale, and lightnings began to rain down on her.

"Something's wrong!" Oliver whispered to Angelina desperately. "We've got to stop her, she'll kill herself!" Angelina shook her head.

"Kate knows what she's doing. Besides, it looks as if we stopped things now, she could die. I know a life-spell when I see one, Oliver," Angelina replied, looking worried. A life spell was when someone 'bet' their life, pouring it into the spell. If the spell worked, then the person would retain their life. If it failed, the person would die. It looked as though Kate had gotten herself into a dangerous situation.

Kate's eyes narrowed in concentration as the onlookers watched, fascinated as her face narrowed into a snarl and she gave her wand a tug. In an explosion of lightning and sparks, the strings inside the box unwound themselves from the knot and fell into several neat lines.

Kate slumped over, exhausted, but before anyone could reach her, she sat up straight and bounced to her feet, eyes sparkling. Those close enough to see her eyes sucked in a breath. Whereas Kate's eyes had normally been a nice, normal chocolate brown, they now were a silvery gray and held a certain ethereal quality. Kate had an almost wicked look to her and had a mischievous grin on her face.

"Well?" Arabella asked. "Did it work?" Kate grinned more broadly and tapped her want to the lock in the door.

"_Alohomora!"_ she said, and the door swung open. "Ladies and gentlemen," she said, eyes glowing slightly, "After you." 

~~~

****

A/N: Sorry for the relative shortness. I would just like to add here that this chapter was helped along by Squin, who listened to me ramble about photosynthesis and sleep deprivation at odd hours. At least in NYC... I don't know what hours it was in her coolio upside-down world... which I plan to someday visit and acquire a nifty accent. I also hope no one minds how I've portrayed Sirius... he just struck me as a sarcastic type of guy who was sort of pessimistic at times like this. And I am beginning to really like my Arabella. It amuses me to play with her. And I apologize for the lame staircase thing, but it's late, and I really am just trying to get this thing out and done so I can edit it and make it all pretty and stuff. And I know you all probably still hate me for keep ending these chapters with cliffhangers.

Haha, I just watched "Goonies" for the twelve-millionth time. That movie is my religion. That and about 20 others... I am such an Empire Records junkie that it frightens some people. Kevin Smith is my God... except for "Chasing Amy", that one I coulda done without. Dogma rocks... and in the immortal words of that dude from "Half Baked" (I think...) "You suck, you suck, you're cool, I'm out."

-Lilith

"We don't need no education

We don't need no thought control

No dark sarcasm in the classroom

Teachers leave them kids alone" – Pink Floyd, "Another Brick in the Wall"


	6. Freedom and Fire

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Chapter Six – Darkness Supreme

A/N: Bah. I really need criticism on this chapter... I have no idea where this is going. After I'm done, I should be able to get back on track, but this will need some editing. So anyway... Chapter Six!

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Katie Bell: No, I don't mean "Katie". I am talking about the same person, but 'Katie' sounds more like a nickname for Katherine or Kate. I like the name fine, but I was just trying to show that the characters have grown up. So I call "Katie Bell" "Kate Bell" instead.

~~~

"Stop being dramatic," Angelina ordered, glaring at Kate crossly. Kate arched an eyebrow, but then obeyed the order and stepped into the Pens, wand at the ready. The others followed her closely, Oliver the closest. The corridor was lined with low metal doors that were huddled close together, with small barred windows. Small, indistinct noises could he heard from within the cells, and none of them were happy sounds. Kate sauntered up to the closest door and inspected it closely, biting her lip, newly gray eyes narrowed in concentration. She finally tapped the door with her wand, and an intricate network of green lines appeared all along the corridor, with certain places that glowed gold and red. It appeared as though they were hovering just underneath the glaze over the stone floor... inside the stones, but not.

"This reminds me of a computer chip!" Arabella exclaimed, looking around at the lines in wonder. The others looked at her, confused. "Ah... never mind. It's a muggle thing." The other shrugged, and resumed examining the lines. They did indeed resemble the lines inside a computer chip, except these lines were glowing a bright neon green and snaked over the entire corridor, ceiling and walls included. Kate was looking at the silver door in front of her. A small red glow was blinking steadily from a place where a green line ended. She carefully followed the line until she found a small gold glow where it ended. She poked the spot with her wand. The line immediately blinked out, and the silver door swung open. A dirty figure slumped through the door to collapse on the floor.

"Aha!" Kate yelled. "That's it! Follow the line from the door, and put a small disabler charm on the gold part!" She ran over to the collapsed figure, and the others hurried to the doors, and were soon following the thin green lines all along the corridor.

Kate knelt down by the figure and touched it's shoulder gently. "Hello?" she said softly and kindly. "It's alright, we're friends. What do you need?" the figure trembled a bit, and looked up from the floor slowly, crouching and curling into a tiny ball. She – Kate could see now that it was a woman – looked around suspiciously, her body shaking. "It's okay," Kate soothed. "We're friends. We're here to help. What's wrong?" The woman looked at Kate with dead eyes, and slowly held out her hands, palm up. Kate reached out and gently took her hand, and the girl trembled. She started to cry.

"It... it's really over?" came the hoarse whisper. 

"It's over," Kate whispered back. She gently pulled the woman into a hug.

Oliver watched the exchange out of the corner of his eye as he traced a green line with his wand. He observed the tender way Kate helped the woman to her feet and brushed off the other's robes, and gently cleaned her cuts with her wand. He watched as Kate helped the woman to sit down near the door, outside the pens, then come back with a fiery look in her eyes. She tapped a red glow, then began to follow the attached green line with determination in her eyes. _She's wonderful, _he reflected, then remembered he was still supposed to be angry at her – or was he? Oliver couldn't remember whether he was supposed to be ignoring her or glaring at her... so he settled for following his little green line. When he found the attached red glow, he quickly poked it with a disabling spell and there was a small pop. A door slid open, and a wild looking girl ran out.

"Try and catch me now, bastards!" she yelled, and ran for the door. Luckily Angelina intercepted her.

"Whoa! We're here to help!" she said, hands out. Without breaking stride, the girl tackled Angelina, grabbed her wand, did a somersault that made her flip back onto her feet, and continued running. Arabella yelled something, and the door leading outside slammed shut. The girl slammed into it, and stumbled back.

"Ow," she said, rubbing her forehead. She then brandished Angelina's wand at the others, glaring. "Stay back! I know how to use this!"

"Calm down," Arabella said. "We're the good guys. Here to free you." The girl didn't respond. "Oh, come on. You do know about the Resistance, don't you?" Still no response. "About Harry Potter, and the rebels that fight against You-Know-Who?" The girl raised an eyebrow, and Arabella threw up her hands. "Hopeless! She's been living under a rock!" The petite witch then proceeded to continue following the tiny green line, then poking the red glow. Another door swung open, and a figure slumped out of it, dragging itself towards the door slowly.

"I'll believe you're the good guys when You-Know-Who's overthrown," the girl said, ignoring the bloody mass that was clawing it's way across the floor.

"You-Know-Who... but we don't know, you can't know, we're all just in the dark... isn't there a song about that? But there are songs about everything, but they're all inside my head, and they're all jumbled and mixed with the words..." a small, scratchy voice came from the bloody mass on the floor. Everyone looked down as the bloody figure rolled over, scratching at the air. There was a collective gasp from everyone in the corridor.

Neville Longbottom lay on the floor, his eyes wide, vacant and staring. There was a crazy grin plastered to his face, and several of his teeth were missing. Long angry scratches ran down his face, and his fingers were cut and bleeding, as though he had tried to claw his way through stone. Ron quickly knelt down beside him.

"Neville?" he called softly. The other man's eyes showed no recognition, but his head turned and he stared at Ron with a crazy look in his eyes.

"Ne-who?" he said, and began to giggle crazily. "I know a knee, but it's not your knee, it's my knee..." More giggling and incoherent babbling. Ron stood up quickly, his expression a mixture of horror, anger and deep sorrow.

"Poor Neville," he said softly, his voice breaking as he moved away from the crazed man lying on the floor. Angelina covered her mouth with her hand, eyes wide and filled with horror. Arabella knelt down next to the giggling figure.

"Neville? Can you hear me?" she asked softly, placing a hand on his forehead gently. There was an immediate change in the boy's behavior. 

"Getoffme! Gerroff getoff getoff getoff..." Neville shot to his feet and ran into a corner, cowering in it, hiding his eyes. "Don't touch me! You can't know! You can't!" Neville ran backwards a few steps, then with a crazed look in his eyes ran towards the stone, his head down, like a bull charging.

"NO!" screamed Angelina... as Neville's head met with the stone wall. There was a cracking noise, and Neville slumped to the ground, blood pooling from his head, a maniacal smile back on his face. Kate walked over to the body, slipping off her black robes as she walked, and draping them over Neville's body. Underneath her robes, Kate was wearing Muggle jeans and a black long sleeved shirt. She knelt by Neville's body and bowed her head silently, the others in the room following suit.

"Okay, I believe you're not evil," announced the ex-prisoner with Angelina's wand. Everyone looked up at her as she relaxed her stance, no longer standing in a fighting position. She tossed the wand back to Angelina, who made a belated effort to catch it. The wand bounced off her hands and landed on the floor, setting off some sparks as it clattered on the stones. Angelina swooped down to pick it up quickly. 

"My name is Rowan," she said.

"We'd introduce ourselves, but we really have to free these prisoners," Arabella said, obviously still annoyed with the other woman for not believing the Resistance was good. Rowan nodded, understanding, and sat down on the floor next to Neville's body. She gently took his hand and began to whisper to him.

Sirius was trying to trace the lines, but he found their glow hard on his eyes, and he often got the lines mixed. The snatches of whispers he heard from Rowan weren't helping his concentration either, and in the end he gave up and went to go see how the freed prisoners were doing.

Kate and Oliver kept "accidentally" brushing up against each other.

Arabella was fuming about Rowan's ignorance and her own inability to make her sleeves stay up above her elbows.

Ron was trying to contact Hermione.

Angelina was trying to contact Harry.

_"Hermione? Are you there?"_

"Ron?"

"Hermione! Thank God you're alright!"

"Why wouldn't I be? I'm just crawling up these steps, you know. There really isn't anything to worry about, except maybe falling down the stairs, which I'm not very likely to do, so you needn't worry, Ron."

"That was a long sentence. Forgive me for being concerned about your well-being. Are you anywhere near the top?"

"I think so. God, I hope _so. I'm getting tired again, I have to stop. I'll contact you later."_

"Alright. Bye."

"Bye."

Ron cracked his neck, began chewing on a knuckle, and continued tracing the lines.

Angelina wasn't having as much luck. No matter how hard she looked, Harry was nowhere within range. Which was, of course, impossible. It also didn't help that Sirius was leaning down, very close to that girl sitting by Neville, and whispering with her. Angelina shook that off, wondering where the thought had come from, then sat down in a quiet corner with a silencing spell around her to help her concentrate.

The freed prisoners were mostly crazies, who were quickly put under a deep slumber spell to keep them from making noise. 

After the last cell door was opened, twenty people lay on the floor asleep, seven were dead, and three were... fairly sane. One of those three was Rowan, who was still holding Neville's hand and whispering to him.

"What are you doing?" Sirius asked, an eyebrow raised. 

"Soothing his spirit," Rowan responded. "He's scared and doesn't know what's going on. I'm trying to calm him down."

"How do you know that?" Sirius asked skeptically. Rowan reached out and took Sirius' hand, then pressed it to Neville's. Sirius was immediately awash with emotions that he didn't understand, and he jerked his hand away from Rowan and Neville's hands. "What was that!?" he asked, eyes wide.

"You just felt what he was feeling," Rowan said quietly. 

"How?" he asked, amazed, staring at his hands. 

"I've always been able to do that. I feel people's emotions when I touch them, and if I touch two people at the same time, they can feel each other's emotions."

"Could you just feel mine?" Sirius asked. Rowan nodded, raised an eyebrow and gave him a small smirk. Sirius growled at her.

"What did you feel?" he asked. Rowan gave him a small smile.

"Lots of things," she said vaguely, obviously dismissing the subject.

"Huh." A few feet away, Kate was frowning and muttering to herself.

"What's wrong?" Oliver asked quickly... a little too quickly for someone who was supposed to be not paying attention to her. Kate didn't notice this.

"I was just wondering... nothing. What time is it?" Kate said, changing the subject. Oliver checked his watch.

"A little after seven," he responded. "Is that enough time?"

"It depends," Arabella answered. She was in the process of ripping her sleeves off. "If we don't run into anything too large, we should be fine. If we run into something big, it might not be enough time."

"We should probably get going, then," Ron remarked at the moment Angelina let out a small scream and toppled over from her position in the corner of the room. Immediately everyone rushed to her aid. Rowan, who was closest, got there first and grabbed Angelina to stop her from falling onto the stone floor. The moment her hands touched skin, however, she jerked them away, leaving Sirius to catch the other girl. 

"Angelina? What's wrong?" Arabella asked quickly, kneeling down by Angelina's head.

"Dragon..." Angelina whispered. "We have to go!" She lurched upwards and towards the door, everyone staring after her. "NOW!" she screamed, panic in her voice. "Get out! RUN!" Everyone bolted for the door. After the last person was out, Rowan slammed the door, but Ron started to go back.

"The sleeping people..."

"We don't have time!" Angelina screamed, frantic. "Run!" She grabbed his hand and pulled him away from the door, down a random corridor, the others following.

The Pens exploded in a rush of white hot flames that shot down the labyrinth of corridors towards the small group. Angelina, Kate and Sirius all simultaneously aimed their wands over their shoulders and yelled something incomprehensible due to the roaring flames. Strong blue light flashed out from their wands, blocking the corridor behind them. The flames slammed against the blue 'wall' and stopped, but the blue light began to sizzle, as though extreme heat was melting it away.

As Ron ran down the corridor, he heard a tiny voice inside his head...

"_Ron...."_ Then it was gone. It sounded tired and pained, and yet somehow familiar, but he couldn't quite place it. He shrugged inwardly. He had more important things to worry about.

Angelina was tiring quickly. She still was fairly weak from the after affects of the spell which would have allowed her to contact Harry... and was weak from the mental assault on her mind. As she'd been scanning for Harry, her mind had hit something much more powerful.

A dragon. It had sensed her tiny spark of power and attacked, it's loyalty being to Lord Voldemort. Angelina quite honestly hadn't done anything to provoke it, but she had sensed it's intent and has warned her friends before it had attacked. When her mind had collided with the dragon's, it had somehow managed to leech her of energy. Now, she was stumbling and breathing hard when a run like this should have been no sweat. Someone seemed to notice this, and an arm wrapped itself around her waist and supported part of her weight. Angelina looked up into a pair of the strangest eyes she had ever seen.

They were intensely blue... shockingly blue. Icy, and beautiful. There was a ring of frosted white directly around the pupil, and there was a deeper blue layer around the outside of the iris. Angelina blinked, and saw that it was Sirius. She let him know with a sigh of relief that the gesture was appreciated. A warmth began to spread through her body, and Angelina realized she was blushing. Startled at this realization, she looked away from Sirius' face.

Arabella's face was twisted in a snarl. The fact that about twenty seven people were now scorched to a crisp had not escaped her notice, and she was hurling insults at Lord Volemort in her mind.

_You no-good sonofabitch asshole, what is your PROBLEM, why must you simply kill innocent people and drive others mad, when I get to you you'll wish you'd never even been BORN, you stupid self-centered PRICK, you've ruined my LIFE and lives of my FRIENDS and my FAMILY and how DARE you do this!? _Her thoughts continued to run along those lines for the rest of the sprint.

As the rag-tag group reached a fork in the corridor, a loud pop let them know that the barrier holding the flames back had broken, and an immediate roaring informed them of the fiery death headed towards them.

"Which way?!" screamed Kate at Sirius. His eyes flicked back and forth between the two passages.

"Left!" he yelled, and dragged Angelina into the smaller tunnel. Angelina approved inside her head: This looked vaguely like the passage up from Potions to the Great Hall back when she had gone to Hogwarts. The others followed, hastily setting up another barrier so that the flames would go down the other corridor. It worked, the white hot flames shot down the other tunnel, leaving the small group panting for breath in the darkness.

"_Lumos_," Oliver muttered, and his wand began to give off a weak light. "All right?"

"Fine," Kate gasped. "Just... peachy... keen... thanks..."

Sirius gently lowered Angelina to the ground and in a rare moment of gentleness swept her hair out of her eyes.

"Are you all right?" he asked softly, picking up her hands and placing his fingers on her wrists, feeling for her pulse. Angelina nodded weakly, breathing hard.

"Just... used up too much energy," she said softly, sounding drained. "I've got a monster headache coming on..." Sirius reached out and lightly touched her temples with his want. A faint green glow touched her, and Angelina's head lolled onto her shoulder in sleep. It was a simple spell, she would awake in about fifteen minutes feeling refreshed and new. Her body would pay the price for it later, but the spell would help her keep going now.

Oliver and Kate had both sunk into weary puddles on the ground, leaning against the wall and sitting next to each other. Neither spoke a word, either to each other or anyone else. And if they noticed that their hands were lying on the floor, twined together, neither one mentioned it.

Arabella was furiously exhausted. Her long silky black hair was sticking to the back of her neck and kept getting tangled. _Almost as annoying as those stupid sleeves, _she thought to herself while angrily pushing strands of hair out of her eyes. As she thought of the annoying sleeves, her face lit up with a brilliant idea. Arabella began searching her robes for something.

Ron watched Arabella's antics through half-closed eyelids. He was breathing heavily, and trying to place the voice he'd heard in his head moments ago.

Rowan had collapsed onto the ground, weary from soothing the confused Neville's spirit. Next to her was a girl that looked Greek, and on her other side was a deadly looking Japanese girl. The Grecian girl had short hair that came to about the middle of her neck, and was cut jaggedly. She wore the suit that all the Pen prisoners wore- a gray jumpsuit that was extremely baggy, due to the skinniness of the prisoner. Her eyes were steely gray, and she had a drained, exhausted look to her. The other girl had black hair, cut boyishly short, and vacant pearly eyes. There was a thin silver ring around her iris, and a slightly blue tint where the iris should be, but otherwise there was just a pupil. She looked Japanese. Her skin was practically transparent. 

"Hullo," Rowan said between deep breaths. The Grecian girl nodded a hello, clutching her side and gasping for breath. The Japanese girl gave a small bow.

"Hey," she replied, not sounding winded at all. She quickly knelt down besides the Grecian girl and began murmuring to her in a foreign tongue. The Grecian girl nodded, still sounding winded, and a small silver glow appeared around her chest. The Japanese girl sighed with apparent relief. Rowan regained enough of her breath to gasp out a question.

"You know each other?" The two looked up at Rowan, and nodded simultaneously.

"We're..." the Grecian girl started to say something, but was silenced by the other girl with a quick jab. "...Related," she finished lamely. "We're related." 

"What're your names?" Rowan asked, starting to catch her breath.

"My name is Emi," said the Grecian girl, smiling slightly. "This is Jen." Jen smiled, and Rowan shivered slightly. _A deadly girl_, she thought to herself. 

"Are you okay?" Rowan asked them, shaking off the shivers that Jen's smile gave her.

"I'm fine," Jen said, her breath already back. 

"Same," Emi said in a small voice. "Just a little tired." Jen stood up, moving with grace. Rowan shivered again, feeling death roll off the other girl in waves.

"Hey," came a gasped voice that sounded like Sirius, "Newbies, are you all okay?"

"We're fine," Rowan answered.

"I'm Jen, this is Emi," Jen said as the moved down the corridor, her eyes narrowing in thought. She put up a hand and touched the magical barrier that had saved them from the flames. "Don't you think we'd better get moving? This isn't strong enough to hold up under Dragon's Fire. It doesn't act the way normal fire does."

"A valid point, Jen, but we're not really in any condition to move," Ron replied, wincing as he tried to stand on a leg that had fallen asleep. As though Lord Voldemort had read Ron's thoughts, there was a sudden rumbling noise... and the stones beneath their feet began to crack.

"Time to go!" Kate announced, leaping to her feet, closely followed by Oliver. They were no longer holding hands. Jen scooped Emi up in her arms and shot off down the corridor, following Kate and Oliver. Sirius scooped up the still sleeping Angelina and grabbed Arabella's arm, and between the two of them they managed a kind of stumbling run while supporting the sleeping girl. Rowan and Ron brought up the rear, both still slightly winded from their previous running. However, this sprint didn't last long: As the group rounded a corner, they ran straight through a large silver... pool, for lack of a better word. It was silver, liquid, but was somehow vertical and covering the entire tunnel's height. Just as people turned the corner, they ran straight into it, without time to stop. The group of rebels was no exception. Kate, then Oliver, ran through first, and did not reappear on the other side. Jen, carrying Emi, then Sirius, Angelina and Arabella all managed to stumble into it, then Rowan and Ron, respectively.

After Ron stumbled through it, the pool closed in on itself and vanished.

High pitched, cold laughter filled the empty corridor...

A/N: I apologize for both the suckiness and shortness of that chapter... but I'd written the characters into a situation I didn't really have the attention span or the inspiration to write them out of, so I had to wait until I actually could write something that didn't completely suck. I'm still not satisfied with this... someone give me constructive criticism? Anyway, the next chapter should come up fairly soon, because I know where I'm going with this storyline... finally...

--Lilith

"You're just in time for my daily count to infinity."

"Fantastic. What number are you on?"

"Two." –David Mack's Kabuki


	7. Dreaming?

****

Chapter Seven – Darkness Supreme

A/N: Arrghh, J.K. Rowling, you're killing me here! I neeeed my book 5! Oh well, guess I'll just have to settle for watching the Quidditch scene in the movie over and over and over and over... hehehe. Anyways. Here is chapter 7. It's kind of a trippy chapter, so if you're confused... I am too, and it's my story.

"Cast the pearls aside, of a simple life of need  
come into my life forever  
the crumbled cities stand as known  
of the sights you have been shown  
of the hurt you call your own  
love is suicide  
  
the empty bodies stand at rest  
casualties of their own flesh  
afflicted by their dispossession  
but no bodies ever knew  
nobody's  
no bodies felt like you  
nobody's  
love is suicide..."

***

Kate opened her eyes. She was alone, floating in space, among the stars. 

_Where am I... _

**You know where you are.** Kate turned, her body twisting and floating in zero gravity. She looked for the speaker. At first, there was no one there... there wasn't anything cloaked in the shadows behind the stars. Then, presently, a shadow began to emerge.

_Who are you? _Kate asked, but her words came out garbled. The shadow emerged farther.

**You know the answer to that, too.** The reply came smooth and thick, and the shadow began to take form. Kate could make out legs... long, like her own, and in the same shape. 

_Why can't I see your face? _The shadow's stomach was visible, then breasts, and arms materialized. A graceful neck emerged from the shadows behind the stars, followed by a face.

The face wore a mask- an intricately decorated mask, with elaborate make-up and a painted smile. The eyes behind the mask, however, were menacing.

**You can see my face now, can't you?**

_No... you're wearing a mask._

**But this is my real face. Isn't that what you're afraid of? That there really isn't anything behind the smile? **If Kate could have jumped back, she would have. How could this... this _thing _know what she was thinking? Kate was afraid that there wasn't really a face behind that smiling mask. 

**But you're afraid of more than that, **the masked shadow-woman intoned, licking her painted lips. **You're afraid there isn't anything behind *your* mask... that this is all you really are. **Kate started. 

_I don't know what you're talking about, _she informed the masked woman.

**But I think you do. Kate Bell... aren't you afraid that this is all you are? Just a painted, pretty face?**

_Shut up! I know I'm more than that! I have value! _Kate cried out, turning away from the mask. This was... uncanny, unnerving. How could this thing know her fears... the deepest, darkest ones... This woman resembled that tiny voice in the back of Kate's head that whispered that she was worthless, that nothing she ever did mattered.

**Ah, I see now. You're afraid you don't have value... that your friends really don't need you. That you just get in the way. **

__

I'm not. I'm not afraid I know they need me.

**Really?**

_... _Kate couldn't respond. She felt her body choke up, felt herself unable to say anything to the contrary of what this woman was saying.

**You are worthless, Katherine Bell. You're nothing. This entire mission would have been possible without you... you do realize that, don't you? Ohh, you didn't... that's so cute, you thought you were doing good for your cause? Katie, dear... you haven't done anything the others couldn't have done on their own. You've just been getting in the way.**

_Shut up! That's not true!_

**Is it? Convince me otherwise. **Kate suddenly couldn't remember anything she'd done that was worthwhile... anything at all.

_I know I did something, _she argued feebly. _I know it... _

**Convincing argument you have there, darling. Face it: You're worthless.**

_I'm not worthless... I just can't remember, that's all..._

**You know that's not true. You know they all hate you. **

_No..._ Kate curled herself up into a little ball as the harsh taunts rang in her ears.

**Worthless scum. Worst type of wizard, did you honestly think you could ever amount to anything? Stupid little girl.**

_Shut up... shut up... _Deep down, Kate knew that what this masked person was telling her didn't make any sense, that these were only her subconscious fears. Still, she couldn't break free of the masked woman's hypnotically destructive voice... so she retreated deep into her own mind, hiding from her fear.

Oliver opened his eyes, then closed them quickly. Heat blasted across his face, and he could feel his eyes beginning to tear. He put one arm out, then the other, trying to feel for something solid. Oliver's feet were buried in sand, but he pulled them out and began to stumble in an unknown direction, arms out in front of him. Finally, after what seemed like hours of stumbling, Oliver's hands touched smooth stone and the harsh, dry winds stopped battering his raw face. Oliver opened his eyes slowly.

He was surrounded by desert nothingness. Yellow sand dunes stretched out for miles on either side of him, only to melt into faded blue skies. The actual horizon line was indistinguishable from land or sky.

Directly in front of him, there was a towering stone rectangle, vaguely resembling a door. The stone was smooth, with no markings on it. Oliver blinked, clearing the sand from his eyes, and began inspecting the stone. He noticed that at the foot of it, there was a hole- just about big enough for him to fit into. Licking his parched lips, Oliver took another brief survey of the land. It was still a long, faceless desert. Oliver looked back down at the hole, then knelt down . He sat on the sand and swung his legs into the cool air beneath the sand's surface, closed his eyes and mouth, and slid down. His feet touched stone and Oliver opened his eyes, wiping sand off his face.

He was in a low-ceilinged cavern. It was pretty big as far as he could tell, with a smooth stone floor. There wasn't much light, but as Oliver strained his eyes it began to get lighter. It was a moment before he realized that the floor was glowing, growing steadily brighter.

As the floor grew brighter, the ceiling began to rise. The golden sand hardened and darkened into a shiny, jet black stone. After a few moments, the ceiling stopped rising and the floor stopped glowing, and Oliver found himself in a square stone room with shiny black stone walls and a glowing floor. As he looked around, he noticed a dark pocket in the corner of the room. Pulling out his wand, Oliver headed towards the corner, muttering "_Lumos!_" under his breath. He held his wand out towards the dark corner... only to have it knocked across the floor.

"Don't point that thing in my face!" a familiar voice snapped. Oliver stepped back, suddenly scared.

"Dad?" he whispered.

"Don't 'Dad' me!" A tall, menacing figure stepped out of the shadows onto the glowing floor. The man spoke with a heavy Scottish accent and had dark brown hair. Grey streaks grew back from his temples, and his eyes were an angry brown.

"What... what're you doing here?" Oliver asked, instinctively hunching, trying to become a smaller target.

"I'm here to put you on the right track, that's why I'm here!" Mr. Wood barked angrily. "What're you doing, gallivanting about with that bunch? You know how I feel about the Resistance! You should be studying and getting a job in the Ministry!"

"I don't want to work in the Ministry, sir," Oliver said in a small voice. 

"What!?" his father barked. "Why the hell not?"

"I... want to play Quidditch... once the war is over, sir," Oliver replied in a small voice.

"Quidditch! That damnfool game is alright to watch, but to play!? Boy, you're out of your mind! You belong in the Ministry, like that Percy Weasley!"

"Percy's dead, dad," Oliver said, sighing. He'd heard this so many times...

**_Crack!_** A fist landed on Oliver's jawbone, a class ring cutting a broad red stripe in Oliver's cheek. The force of the punch sent Oliver reeling, and he fell over backwards in surprise.

"You don't speak to me in that disrespectful manner!" Mr. Wood roared. Oliver stared up at his father in horror, his hand going to the bleeding line down his face.

"Do you understand?" Mr. Wood roared, his eyes bloodshot and angry. Oliver was silent, staring up at his father with a touch of defiance and fear in his eyes.

"DO YOU UNDERSTAND?" Mr. Wood screamed again, his fist raising in a threat. Oliver looked away.

"Yes, sir," he said quietly, pulling his knees in to his chest and hugging them.

"You know what's wrong with you, boy? I'll tell you. You had too much leeway growing up, with your mother around. It turned you into a weakling, you've got no goals, no respectable talents, only thing you can do is play that damned game! Well all that's going to change real soon, boy, because I won't stand for this any longer..."

Oliver tried to drown his father out, but it wouldn't work. Oliver's deepest fears came pouring out of the mouth of the person he had hoped to never see again, and he simply hugged his knees closer to his chest, trying to block his father out...

Jen and Emi opened their eyes at the same time. They were in a gray concrete room with bars on the windows. They looked at each other, clasped hands, and vanished from the room, to reappear back in the tunnel in the dungeons of Voldemort's castle.

Sirius opened his eyes and felt something he had not felt in a long time... the feeling of cold chains against his skin. Thick metal cuffs were attached to his bare wrists and ankles, and a cold chain wrapped its way around his neck. A cold, dark presence filled the room and without looking, Sirius knew what they were.

Dementors.

He was back in Azkaban.

Immediately, little voices began whispering to him, their words like tiny needles pricking at his emotions, ripping them apart slowly. He saw visions of his friends, all dead, lying in pools of their own blood. He felt anything and everything inside him being drained away, and felt a pool of bleakness surround his heart. Sirius closed his shocking blue eyes and fell limp against his chains, feeling overwhelming despair...

...And the chains cracked. Sirius fell onto the floor, and felt something around him shatter. Opening his eyes, he found himself lying on the floor of the tunnel he had been running through with Angelina. The two girls from the Pens... Jen and Emi... were kneeling in front of him, their eyes closed. Both of them were glowing with a strange light. Sirius got to his knees and managed to crawl over to the wall—his legs felt too much like jelly for comfort.

After a few moments, Angelina appeared on the floor. Her eyes jerked open and she gasped, shaking. Sirius reached out and grabbed her shoulders and jumped, startled. She felt like ice.

Before either of them could do anything, Arabella, Rowan and Ron all appeared on the corridor floor. Jen and Emi stopped glowing and opened their eyes. Emi fell backwards, but was caught swiftly by Jen.

"What happened?" Ron gasped, clutching his chest, his eyes wide with panic. "We were running... and then I was... and now I'm back..."

"Just relax," Jen said, supporting Emi. "We were sucked into a "Porta de los Muertos"... a "Door of the Dead", in English. It sucks you in, then finds your deepest fears. It creates something to exploit these fears, and feeds off of them until you die." Jen gently helped Emi get into a sitting position, leaning against the wall. "We saw it, just before we went in. Since we knew how to get out of it, we got you all out too."

"Where's Kate and Oliver?" Sirius wanted to know, still breathing hard. 

"They're still in there," breathed Emi. "They went in first and second, and we weren't powerful enough to get them out. We barely managed to get you out. The others were easietr, because they went in later. The Portal's power wanes with each person to go through it, so it was easiest to get the redhead out."

"How are we going to get them out?" Angelina asked, shivering. Sirius propped her up and slipped off his cloak, then gently wrapped it around her shivering body.

"They have to break most of the spell themselves, then we can finish it off," Jen replied quietly. "There's no guarantee they'll break it enough for us to be able to do anything."

"Can we monitor it or something?" Sirius growled. "Any way to tell if they're getting close to breaking it?"

"Emi already is," Jen replied smoothly. "If you could all just sit in a circle and rest, she can tell you when they're going to break the spell enough. Until then, we all need to get some sleep, I think." Jen looked around at everyone. "Emi can warn us if anything is coming." Angelina checked the time.

"It's eight," she informed everyone. "We have an hour. Emi, wake us all up in fifteen minutes. If Oliver and Kate haven't broken the spell enough, we..." she swallowed. "We'll have to leave them." The others looked down. No one wanted to say anything... it was the entire magical world or two dear friends. Ron lay down, biting his lip. The others followed his example. Ron had time to wonder, just before he dozed off, how Hermione was doing...

**Just give up, Kate darling. You don't matter to them, they're not going to come here to get you. Give it up! You can stop it, you know. You can stop the pain.**

_Shut up... _Kate whispered through her tears. _Just be quiet, leave me alone..._

**Pathetic little worm. _Leave me alone! Shut up! I'm important! I matter! _**The masked woman mocked Kate, who was curled up in a fetal position in midair, floating in between mirrors and stars.

_Oliver! _Kate said suddenly, uncurling. _Oliver was proud of me... when I... _she frowned, trying to remember.

__

**Oliver! Oliver was never proud of you, Katie darling. Except maybe on the Quidditch pitch, but that doesn't matter here, does it? You love Oliver. And he thinks you're dirt.**

_No he doesn't! _Kate fought, tears streaming down her cheeks. In her vision, the invincible stars began to flicker.

**Why is he always fighting with you? Why does he have to find mistakes in everything you do? He never does anything nice for you. **Kate didn't want to believe the voice... but she couldn't remember Oliver being nice to her. Still, something inside her refused to believe that.

_No, _Kate said firmly. _I know he cares about me. You can't change that._

**You honestly think a girl like you matters to a boy like that? He's probably had dozens of girls like you and cast them all off. You're nothing but a little girl with a crush, to him.**

__

You're wrong, Kate said, smiling wryly at the masked woman. _You're wrong about him. You don't know him at all._

**I know him better than you think! **The woman sounded slightly panicked. She had gone too far, challenged the one thing that Kate seemed sure of, deep down. She had to regain control of Kate's emotions. Time for a shock, she seemed to think. **I know him better than you think, **she repeated softly, and began to undo the ribbons on her mask.

_Stop! _Kate yelled. _I don't want to see your face. You're a liar. Oliver loves me! I know it! _The stars flickered and died. The mirrors cracked, and the woman let out a long, low, dangerous scream.

Kate! Kate, can you hear me? It's Emi!

_Emi? Yes! I can hear you!_

Quickly... concentrate on whatever it is that's making it weak... and concentrate on me! Kate closed her eyes and filled her mind with Oliver... his look, his smell, his presence. She concentrated on the smooth voice of Emi she felt rolling in her head, and clenched her hands together.

There was a loud shattering noise, and Kate snapped her eyes open. The mirrors had completely shattered, and the naked masked woman had cracked too. As she crumbled, from the toes up, the ribbons holding her mask on came off. The mask crumbled from her face, and as the world created by Kate's fears broke and Kate found herself lying on a cold stone tunnel, Kate saw the woman's face.

It was her own.

"Dirty, disgusting..." Mr. Wood muttered. He began to advance on Oliver's prone figure, which was still lying on the ground. "Get up, boy!"

"Yes, sir," Oliver said quietly, hoisting himself off of his feet and standing in military position in front of his father. Mr. Wood glared up at his son, who was a good six inches taller than he was.

"So, what are you going to do now?" Mr. Wood asked dangerously, his eyes narrowed at his son. "Are you going to apply for a job in the Ministry?"

"I... uh..." Oliver bit his lip. He _couldn't _work for the Ministry. The Ministry still didn't admit that Lord Voldemort was back in power. 

Oliver thought fast. He remembered what his father had wanted him to do with his life... something in the Ministry, get married, raise a family, retire, then die. _Get married? Raise a family? Hmmm..._ Oliver thought. _Maybe if I tell him I'm getting married, he'll leave me alone for a bit about the job thing._

"Actually, sir," Oliver heard himself saying, "I've been thinking about getting married."

"_Married!?_" Oliver's father said, surprised. Oliver never talked about girls with his parents, even when he lived with them. "Who is this girl?"

"Katherine Teresa Bell, sir," Oliver said, quickly inventing a middle name for Kate. It sounded more impressive that way.

"Bell?" Mr. Wood asked, his eyes narrowing. Oliver swallowed. This wasn't a good sign. "Bell?" Mr. Wood repeated. "You mean Joseph's daughter?"

"Y-yes, sir," Oliver said. He suddenly cursed himself... of course his father would know the stories surrounding Kate's father...

"_Ab_solutely not! I will not have my son marry the daughter of a loony!" roared Oliver's father, spit flying out of his mouth as he screamed his fury. Oliver shrank back.

"Sir, she's nothing like her father," Oliver said quietly.

"I don't care! She's his offspring! Anything that comes out of that family is filth," spat Mr. Wood. Oliver's eyes narrowed.

"Kate's not filth."

"Yes she is!" Mr. Wood screamed, his eyes rolling and saliva flying from his mouth. "She's an offspring of that cheating lying scumbag of a father! She'll turn out just like him, you mark my words!"

"No. She won't," Oliver said, anger burning in his chest. "Kate's not like her father at all. She doesn't even look like him."

"IT DOESN'T MATTER!" Oliver shrank back from his father's wrath, the anger still burning within him. "SHE'S SCUM! THE WORST KIND! I WILL NOT HAVE YOU ASSOCIATING WITH A GIRL LIKE THAT!" 

"She's not scum." Oliver stared up at his father, fear forgotten. 

"What was that?" Mr. Wood asked, snarling. 

"She's not scum." Oliver said it a bit louder this time. "She's stubborn, and obstinate, and has a horrible temper, but she's not scum."

**_Crack! _**Another blow caught Oliver in the same place, the ring slicing another line in his cheek. This time, Oliver wasn't knocked down. He stood his ground- something he had never done against his father before.

Oliver! It's Emi! Listen to me... whatever it is that's making you go against the illusion, keep it up! We'll be able to break you out soon!

_Emi? The girl from the Pens?_

Yes! Just... fight your illusion! It's not real!

Oliver narrowed his eyes, tensed his muscles, and dove for his wand. It was still lying on the floor, glowing with the Lumos spell he'd put on it. He quickly dimmed the light and aimed the wand at his father.

"You are not my father," he said, voice shaking with anger.

"**True**," said the thing. Mr. Wood's form began to glow with a strange, inner red light. His features twisted, becoming demonic and red. "**But it doesn't matter. We've got you.**"

"I don't think so," Oliver said angrily as he began to chant in an unknown language.

**What are you doing? **The thing that had once been Oliver's father had turned into a demon... something out of Oliver's nightmares. It's body armor was jet black with no shine to it, with a red glow coming out from the cracks in the armor. Two horn jutted from it's head, and it's eyes were two orange slits. 

Oliver's chant began to grow in intensity. His wand was also glowing with a strange blue light that cast wavering shadows on the shiny jet-black walls. The blue light then separated itself from Oliver's wand, lying on the glowing floor. The blue concentrated itself, then appeared to make some kind of silent explosion. 

When the light cleared, the blue light was gone. In it's place stood a tall, willowy woman. She was naked, but she didn't really have any of the parts that define a woman. Her presence was simply feminine. She has long blue hair, clear blue skin, and she was made of water.

**A water elemental, **observed the demon, looking slightly worried.

"Well, can't get anything past you," Oliver commented sarcastically. The water elemental grinned, revealing a small set of fangs. She looked hard at Oliver and he tilted his head to one side, as though he was listening to something.

"Would you?" he asked after a bit. The water elemental nodded. "That would be great," Oliver told her. She grinned again, turned to the demon and without missing a beat leapt at him.

The demon raised his claws and ripped them through her translucent blue body. Water splattered on the ground, sparkling with the light from the glowing floor. Slowly, the demon began to laugh.

**Is that it? Is that the best you can do, Oliver? Your father was right about you. You are a wimp.**

"I wouldn't be so certain," Oliver replied quietly, concentrating on Kate in his mind. The water around the feet of the demon began to twist and swirl. Slowly, it reassembled itself behind the demon to look like a woman again. The woman grabbed the demon by the neck, and the jet black walls cracked and began to shatter.

That's it! The elemental is weakening the Portal's power over you! Emi's voice slid into Oliver's head. Keep it up! The water elemental stuck her blue fingers into the fiery red eyes of the demon, and steam spurted from the top of it's head. It would have been comical if Oliver hadn't been so furious. The glowing floor shattered, the demon shattered, the water elemental burst and the walls fell down. Oliver suddenly found himself hovering about a foot above the tunnel floor. He blinked, and suddenly the force holding him up dropped him. Oliver landed on his stomach, inside the loose circle of rebels, Kate lying on her back at his side.

The two looked at each other for a long moment, their eyes locked. Oliver held out his hand silently, and Kate took it. They helped each other off the floor.

Jen and Emi were sitting on the floor. Emi had a drained, exhausted look to her, and Jen was holding her hand. The others were lying scattered on the floor, asleep. Angelina was wrapped in Sirius's cloak and was leaning on his shoulder. Sirius was leaning against the wall, his head tilted back and his mouth open. Ron was lying on the floor, his limbs flung out in every direction. Arabella was slumped on Rowan's shoulder.

Oliver nudged Ron with his foot, and Kate knelt down and gently began shaking Angelina awake. Sirius opened his eyes at the same time Angelina did, and they both jerked away from each other quickly. Ron made a muffled noise and withdrew all his limbs so that he was a tiny ball on the floor. Oliver nudged him again. Arabella toppled over, waking herself and Rowan up. Oliver finally just kicked Ron in the shins, waking him up effectively. 

"It's time to go," Emi said in her breathy, winded voice. Angelina slowly got to her feet, still shivering. She started to slip Sirius' cloak off her shoulders, but he stopped her.

"Keep it," he said. "I don't need it." Angelina nodded, and slipped it back onto her shoulders. Ron bit his knuckles, looking worried. Jen and Emi got up off the floor.

"You are all planning on fighting the Dark Lord?" Jen asked. The rag-tag group of fighters all gave some kind of affirmative. "You're all fools," she said softly. "We tried to fight, and he defeated us. He'll defeat you too. It's a hopeless fight."

"Maybe so," Ron said, shrugging. "But we've got to try." Jen shook her head sadly.

"We really need to get up to the main hall," Angelina said, breaking into whatever it was Jen was about to say. The group's confidence was shaky, and they didn't need some mysterious prisoner to try and convince them not to fight.

"All right," Jen said. "But I'm not fighting against You-Know-Who." Angelina nodded.

"No one is asking you to," she replied smoothly. Sirius helped Arabella and Rowan up off the floor, and they began to shuffle down the corridor, Ron following. Kate and Oliver walked along slowly, with Jen, Emi and Angelina bringing up the rear.

Sirius led the group as a giant black dog. Using the dog's sense of smell, he could track down Lord Voldemort easily. Even now, he was having no trouble at all. The smell of unrefined evil was an almost unbearable stench to Sirius.

Due to Sirius' nose, the group avoided getting lost in the maze of dungeons. It was only eight-thirty when they reached the stairs that would take them up to the main hall, which was where Lord Voldemort would be performing the ritual. After a few deep breaths, they climbed the stairs and hid outside the huge doors that led into the main hall.

"The castle doors are down that hallway," Angelina said, pointing. "Once Harry gets here with the centaurs, you go out the way he came in. I'm not sure where you want to go once you get out."

"We'll go to Edinburgh and lay low for a while," Jen responded. "In case you win, you can come get us there." Angelina nodded, while Arabella muttered something about "stinking ungrateful prisoners".

Ron frowned. He was trying to talk to Hermione, but he couldn't find her. She couldn't be out of range... 

"Angelina," Ron said, fear striking at his heart, "Can you help me contact Hermione?" Angelina nodded, looking concerned. She'd noted the slight panic in Ron's voice and hurried over to him. Together, they began to try and find Hermione.

Kate and Oliver both crouched by the giant doors, listening to what was going on inside. There were some slithering movements, then silence. Then there was a dragging noise, and someone whimpering.

"HERMIONE!" Ron bellowed, springing to his feet. He pointed his wand at the door and screamed something that made the doors blast inwards, off their hinges. They flew across the room, crashing into several of the pillars holding the ceiling up. Angelina groaned as Ron flew into the room, wand at the ready.

"Oh, no..." The others quickly got up, readied their wands and followed Ron inside, hoping that what they were thinking wasn't true.

It was. 

Lord Voldemort stood in the center of the room. A large black cauldron was hanging in midair over a large fire. Several bodies lay at his feet, pale and unmoving. Blood speckled the ground, and a vibrant green circle ran around the ritual setup.

He had become more serpent-like over the years. His skin had taken on a green tinge, and his eyes were red slits. His lips were thin and pale, and his nose was simply two slits in his face. Long, curving fingers delicately clutched a wand in one hand and a glittering, bloodstained silver knife in the other.

The knife was being pressed up against Hermione's throat. Hermione had her back pressed up against Lord Voldemort's body, and his wand was also aimed at her neck. She was his prisoner.

Ron looked in horror at the sight before him, his wand arm slowly dropping. Angelina and Sirius stood side by side, their eyes wide. Kate and Oliver recoiled at the sight of the Dark Lord, and Rowan looked uncomprehendingly at the scene before her. Arabella's eyes narrowed, and her knuckles turned white as she clenched her fingers around her wand.

"Welcome," Lord Voldemort hissed. "I'm so pleased you could join me."

***

****

A/N: Wow, that's an evil cliffhanger I've got going there. Bah. Anyway... its too late to be writing anymore. Tell me what you think of this chapter... too long, too short, badly written, well written... whatever. Ohhh wow... I'm incredibly hungry. The next chapter should be the last one in this story. There will be a sequel to this, but it will be longer in coming up because I'm going away for a month in June... or July. One of the J's, I can't remember which. Also, I have exams coming up all this next week, so studying is high on my list of things to do... or rather, it's high on my mother's list of my things to do. Anyway... yeah. So the next chapter might take a while to get up, but it will get up, even if I have to sweat blood. Wait, that sounds bad.

--Lilith

"Now we drive the night, to the ironies of peace  
you can't help deny forever  
the tragedies reside in you  
the secret sights hide in you  
the lonely nights divide you in two  
all my blisters now revealed  
in the darkness of my dreams  
in the spaces in between us  
but no bodies ever knew  
nobody's  
no bodies felt like you  
nobody's  
love is suicide." –"Bodies", The Smashing Pumpkins


	8. The End is the Beginning is the End

****

Chapter Eight- Darkness Supreme

A/N: Well gee, it only took me what, four months to get this chapter up? I'm proud, I usually abandon stories that are this long, but I've finished the last chapter. Go me! Well, thanks goes out to everyone who reviewed, and to Katie avec la fedora: Yeah, romance does screw up perfectly good friendships, but hey, this is Ron and Hermione. They're meant to be. At least in my stories, anyway... And thankee for reading. I miss you!

Anyway, here's the fic. *Sniff* Thanks for reading, and for info about the sequel, read the Authors Note at the end of the fic.

***

"Welcome," Lord Voldemort hissed. "I'm so pleased you could join me."

_This isn't real, _Ron thought to himself, his wand slipping from numb fingers onto the floor. _It's not happening. Any minute now this will crack, like those stupid dream-portal things, and we'll be back in a tunnel, or better yet, back home... and everything will be fine._

"Lord Voldemort," Sirius said coolly, gripping his wand tightly. Angelina backed up slightly, stepping behind Sirius. She was face to face with every child's worst nightmare, and she was going to have to fight it. Angelina clutched Sirius' cloak tightly around her and inhaled his scent. It calmed her, if only a little.

Kate felt her heart nearly stop at the sight in front of her. The sight of Lord Voldemort alone was enough to put terror in her heart, but the sight of a friend at his mercy was much, much worse. Kate felt her eyes turning to Ron, and her heart nearly broke. He was staring at Hermione, his eyes blank and an expression of pure misery and terror on his face. Kate felt tears gathering in the corners of her eyes.

Oliver closed his eyes and turned his head away. He gently felt for Kate's hand, and once he found it, he closed his own callused fingers around hers. Despair struck him deeply. _How... how can we save her... and kill him? How can we fight... without breaking Ron's heart...?_

Rowan stared ahead at the specter of evil that had imprisoned her, and could feel waves of evil rolling across her like an ugly stench. Obviously, the girl was his prisoner, but why was everyone looking so sad...? Did they know her? Rowan looked towards Ron, and suddenly she knew. _Oh_, she thought dimly to herself, feeling the waves of despairing love radiate from his tall lanky body. _So that's who she is._

Arabella snarled and attacked.

"_Stupefy!_" she screamed, her voice raw with rage. Her anger magnified the attack, and as she screamed out the spell, she dove towards Lord Voldemort, all her anger and frustration against him powering her leap.

The spell shot forwards, hit the green circle which surrounded Lord Voldemort, and rebounded. It struck Arabella in the chest, mid-leap. She was knocked backwards, her head cracking against the stone floor. Blood pooled around her black hair, and her wand fell from her enraged yet lifeless fingers.

Everyone stared down at Arabella, her pale skin becoming even paler in contrast to her black hair and the deep red that seeped in a pool around her head. Kate gave a strangled and angry cry, then aimed her wand at Lord Voldemort.

"_Expelliarmus!" _she yelled, and had to dive out of the way as her spell rebounded, just as Arabella's had. Oliver conjured a broomstick and swung one leg over it, taking off as easily as though the days he played Quidditch for Gryffindor weren't long gone. Angelina quickly twisted her wand in a complex pattern, and a shimmering light wove itself around Oliver. He nodded his thanks for the protection spell, and began to fly around the ceilings to distract Lord Voldemort. Angelina quickly turned to Sirius.

"Give me your hand," she said quietly. Sirius looked at her, confusion in his electric blue eyes. Angelina felt herself staring, and blushed. "Give me your hand!" she insisted, and Sirius held up a callused and scarred palm. She placed the tip of her wand into the center of his palm, and closed her eyes. It took Sirius a few moments to realize that she was murmuring under her breath, and a moment afterwards he realized his skin had started _glowing_. Angelina's eyes were still closed, but her eyelids flickered and her brows furrowed with concentration. Sirius felt warmth grow from his hands, and he watched the glow spread along his exposed skin. Goosebumps shivered up his spine, and Angelina opened her eyes. "Protection spell," she said quietly. "They're my specialty."

"Thanks," Sirius responded. They stared at each other for a few seconds, then were distracted by Oliver crashing to the floor. Sirius jerked his hand away from Angelina and aimed his wand at Voldemort angrily. "Go do that spell to the others," he hissed, and then bellowed something at his wand. An angry green spark fell to the ground, and vines began springing up between the cracks of the stones. Vines with lots of thorns. They were growing towards Voldemort's Circle of Protection.

Rowan was nearly paralyzed from the emotional overload she was receiving. She opened her mind and began to gather all the anger and pain from her friends, and the residue left over from the dead people's fear. She sharpened it into a lance with her mind, and slung it at the Dark Lord. He glanced in her direction for a second... and her lance rebounded, exactly as Arabella's spell had. She tried to slam up her shields... but it was too late. The mind-bolt fried her mind and she collapsed to the ground, eyes rolling up into her skull and her spirit leaving her body.

Kate rushed over to Oliver's unmoving form. _Oh God, oh God oh God oh PLEASE don't let him be dead, please please please please don't let him be dead, oh not now, not now, oh why, oh he CAN'T be gone, no..._ She reached out a hand and wrapped it around Oliver's wrist, feeling for a pulse. She felt one, and breathed a huge sigh of relief. It was strong. He was only unconscious. "_Enervate_!" She whispered, and Oliver stirred. Kate breathed a sigh of relief.

"_Extraticus!" _Angelina shrieked, and a ring of blue light flashed from her wand and slammed into the green barrier. The green flickered, and was having an obvious fight with the blue. Angelina began to waver, her eyes rolling back into her head, but she gamely held her wand up so her spell would fight the green barrier. Oliver pointed his wand and muttered something, and a stream of red shot from his wand into the barrier next to Angelina's blue. Sirius morphed into a dog and slunk into the shadows, eyes never leaving the fighting. Kate shot a jet of black lightning into the barrier, and with the hand that wasn't holding her wand began to draw characters on the floor around her using the blood of one of the dead people lying on the floor.

Ron had retreated far into his own mind, trying to simply will the entire scene in front of him to vanish. _It isn't real,_ he kept telling himself, _its not real. It's not. She's fine. This isn't real._ Tears began to gather in his eyes, and his nose itched. His mind was bringing him back to reality, gently telling him that this was real, and if he wanted to make his eyes dry up and shrivel because he wasn't blinking, well, that was his problem.

"_THIS IS NOT HAPPENING!"_ Ron screamed to the ceiling, anguish evident in every one of the words. His face was a mask of pain, and he dropped to his knees, despair pulling her cold hook through his heart.

Ron's screams broke Voldemort's concentration for a second, and his barrier raised an inch off the ground, so now there was an inch of an opening. Sirius, as a dog in the shadows, saw this, and leaped. He transformed back into himself quickly, and Summoned Ron's dropped wand. He then carefully Banished it so it slid under the barrier and stopped directly under Hermione's feet. Lord Voldemort hadn't noticed. Sirius carefully whispered "_Wingardium leviosa!"_ The wand floated up, gently tapping Hermione's foot to get her attention, then floating upwards until her hand wrapped around it. Sirius smiled, turned back into a dog, and slunk back towards the others.

Angelina's body was feeling weak. She could hardly keep her arm up anymore, much less force raw power through her wand. The blue line coming from her wand was wavering in intensity, and it finally vanished. Angelina collapsed limply onto the floor, her energy gone. Kate and Oliver began to feel the strain of constantly forcing energy out of themselves. Kate stopped her flow of black lightning and began to concentrate on the strange marks she had made around herself. They began to crack, and soon there were holes in the stone floor. Kate quickly took a bag of what looked like sand from her belt and filled up the holes with the sand. It began to glow, and she leaned back on her heels and closed her eyes. The sand glowed brightly, then vanished... and so did she.

"Wicked!" Kate's voice exclaimed. "I _love_ invisibility spells!"

Oliver saw the wand in Hermione's hand. His eyes widened, and he looked up directly into her eyes. She nodded at him slightly, her fist closing even tighter around the firm wooden handle. 

Sirius transformed back into a man and began to drag Angelina towards the corner of the room. She was completely passed out, her skin was pale and cold. Sirius wrapped his cloak more tightly around her body and looked up... just for a moment...

And the entire room seemed to explode.

At the exact moment that Hermione cast the most powerful protection spell she knew over herself and then performed the most powerful explosive curse known, Harry came charging into the room, only to be hit by the powerful explosion residue.

Hermione lay on the floor, unconscious. Ron's wand had exploded, scorching her hand even through the spell she had cast over herself, but it had worked. Voldemort's barrier was down... but he wasn't.

Lord Voldemort stood, laughing, next to the cauldron filled with blood. His wand was smoking, but he showed no visible sign of the explosion which had originated less than an inch from his body.

Kate, invisible, narrowed her eyes and leapt at him, performing a leaping kick. Her foot caught him in the chin, and he fell backwards into a pile of smoking bodies. Kate picked him up by the collar of his robe and punched him in the face, then brought her knee up into his groin. Blood spilled out of the corner of his mouth. Lord Voldemort, however, was prepared. He shoved his wand into her chest, cutting through her thick robes with its knife-like point, then whispering a spell to himself. Kate was blasted across the room, and slammed into a wall. She slid to the floor, blood spilling from her back.

Oliver uncovered his eyes to see Kate suddenly appear in the air next to Lord Voldemort, fly backwards in the air and slam into a wall. His vision suddenly went hazy, and he felt a scream tear from his throat. He found strength to cast a spell... "_Incendere!"_ Oliver screamed, and Voldemort's robes were suddenly burning. Oliver passed out with the effort of the spell, combined with the effort of trying to bring down Voldemort's barrier before.

The Dark Lord simply glanced at his flaming garments and they stopped burning. With a hysterical laugh he launched several explosive fireballs around the room, and stooped down to pick up Hermione's unconscious body. He needed her blood, he needed to start the ritual _now,_ or he would lose his chance...

An explosion slammed into the pillar directly next to Sirius. He looked up to see it falling, but it was too late. He shoved a semi-conscious Angelina out of the way of the falling stones.

Harry got up, dazed and wondering what was going on. Before he could voice his confusion, a half-conscious Angelina stumbled out of the dust and a pile of stones fell directly in front of him. Angelina screamed, a high, angry scream that sounded much like Ron's scream for Hermione. The last thing Harry saw before a stone knocked him out was Angelina diving into the pile of stones, pushing them away in a frenzied search.

All Angelina knew was that she had to find Sirius. Tears streaked down her face and dripped onto her bleeding hands, stringing the cuts, but she kept forcing rocks away. She had to find him. She _had_ to. Her hands suddenly touched something soft... and she knew. Knew that Sirius was dead, crushed beneath the rocks... crushed for _her. _He could have leapt away. She could be lying under there, bleeding and cold... but he was. Angelina looked up, red clouding her vision. She ran at the Dark Lord, teeth bared, nails outstretched, like some bloodthirsty barbarian. Lord Voldemort's eyes widened a bit in surprise and fear... this girl running towards him had hair matted and sticky with blood, cuts and bruises on her face and body, a torn cloak around her ripped robes and her eyes were cold with rage. Her lips were forced into a snarl. Voldemort knew that this was an attack of pure anger, with no planning or strategy. He smiled a little to himself, and when she got close enough, simply stabbed her straight through the chest with his silver knife. He'd wanted to use the mudblood's blood for the finishing touch for the potion, but this one's would do just as well.

Angelina did not feel the cold silver drive through her. She simply felt an all-consuming rage, and she bared her teeth and snarled at this... this _creature._ She raked her nails along his face, drawing blood that looked tinged with black. Angelina's hands went around his neck, and she began to choke him. This surprised the Dark Lord. Didn't the girl realize there was a knife coming out of her back? She was as good as dead. Even his death wouldn't save her life... so why was she fighting? He tugged the knife out of her chest and stabbed her through the side of her neck. 

Angelina felt a burning pain, and colored spots began to flash in front of her eyes. She no longer had the strength to keep herself up, and she slid to the ground, eyes fluttering. She could see something strange, though... Lord Voldemort was standing over her, his hands coming ever closer towards her... but behind him... 

Lord Voldemort started and turned around as he heard the sound of something shattering... and he let out a high pitched wail. Arabella stood in a pile of glass shards and blood. The glass cauldron he had been using for the spell was shattered. The ritual could not be performed. Lord Voldemort wailed and aimed his wand at Arabella, only to be tackled from behind by a mop of black and red hair. Both Harry and Ron had come to their senses, it seemed, and had deemed the situation desperate. Lord Voldemort stumbled, then twisted like a snake, throwing Ron off of his back and into the broken glass and blood. The Dark Lord wrestled with Harry for a bit, trying to get the tall man off of his back.

"What are you waiting for?!" Ron shouted to Arabella from the floor. Arabella had her wand aimed at the fighting pair. "Blast him!"

"I can't! They're moving around too much, I might hit Harry!" she yelled back as a blast of yellow light came from Harry's wand. It rebounded off of Voldemort's skull and blasted into the stones a foot away from Ron's face, knocking him unconscious. 

Harry began to kick the back of the Dark Lord's legs and began to stab Lord Voldemort with the blunt point of his own wand. The other man was protected from magical assault, and Harry was at an advantage while on his back: The Dark Lord had difficulty hitting him with anything other than the back of his arm.

Lord Voldemort finally realized a very easy way to get Harry off his back. He slammed his body backwards so Harry was slammed into the ground with the Dark Lord on top of him. Harry was knocked senseless in the fall, and Voldemort got up, gathering his robes around him. He looked up...

To find the angry blue eyes of a pale and bloody witch with her wand pointed directly in between his eyes.

"_Avada Kedavra!"_ she said, winking, and it sounded very much like the way a cheerful person would say "See you later!"

The green light struck Voldemort straight in between the eyes. There was a rushing sound and a cracking noise, and the Dark Lord's skin began to crumble and turn black. She watched until the threat to the Free Wizards was just a pile of dust, and then aimed her wand at his.

"_Avada Kedavra,"_ she whispered. The green light hit the wand... and the wand exploded in a burst of sickly green energy. It gathered into a cloud that flew into Arabella, flowing into her nose, eyes, ears, and knocking her to the ground where she lay, allowing herself to lose consciousness.

Lord Voldemort was dead.

When Harry came to, he was lying on the ground with his hand clutching someone else's hand. He glanced over to see that his companion was a very dead corpse. Harry groaned, jerked his hand away from the dead body, and sat up.

The room he was lying in was a mess. Lying not two feet from him was a pile of greenish ashes, and a thin line of gray dust. Arabella lay on top of a bloody body, her hand still clutching feebly to her wand. Harry turned. Kate was still lying slumped against the floor... she hadn't moved since she'd been hurled there. Angelina...

Harry hurried over to Angelina, hands shaking with worry. Her body was jerking slightly, and blood flowed sluggishly from her gaping wounds.

"It's... the only... way..." she gasped. Harry panicked.

"No, no, Angelina, you're going to be fine," he said, groping for something that wasn't soaked in blood. Angelina smiled, her ashy lips pulling over her teeth so that she looked like a skeleton.

"Tell Fred... I'm sorry," she whispered, eyes blinking rapidly. Harry felt tears gathering in his eyes.

"Angelina... please don't die," he whispered. "Come on, you're the only Chaser Wood'll ever accept onto a team as Right Flank..." he stopped, unable to speak. Angelina looked up at him, and shook her head slightly... then turned her head to gaze at something behind Harry. It took him a moment to realize she was dead. Tears fell from his face and dripped onto her chapped lips, and he closed her eyes with blistered and bloody hands.

Hermione woke, her swollen eyes almost refusing to open. She let out a series of coughs and inhaled deeply. There was a scrambling noise, and suddenly hands were helping her to sit up.

"Hermione!" It was Harry. She breathed a sigh of relief, and reached out to him. He hugged her tightly, as though it had been years since he'd last seen her.

"Harry... what happened?" she asked, looking around at the damage. Her eyes fell on Ron's body, lying at a funny angle in a pool of blood, shards of glass, and stones. Scorch marks covered one side of his body. "Oh God!" Hermione leapt over a pile of bodies and knelt beside her love, Harry at her side. She felt for a pulse, and finding one, groped around her for a wand. Harry pointed his wand at Ron and muttered "_Enervate!_"

Ron opened his crystal blue eyes slowly, groaning in pain. The first thing his muddled eyes fell upon was Hermione... and he suddenly stopped hurting. He shot up and grabbed her, hugging her close and kissing her hair. At first, Harry couldn't tell what he was saying, but after a moment realized it was "You'reokayyou'reokayyou'realiveohgodyou'reokay..." and discreetly slid away from them and turned his back, becoming very interested in the ceiling. After a few minutes, he felt a hand on his shoulder and looked behind him. Ron and Hermione stood there, hand in hand, eyes shining. Without a word the three of them embraced, and there wasn't a single dry eye between the three of them.

"Now that we're done being mushy," Hermione said, breaking the silence as they all broke the hug, "We've got some work to do."

The three friends looked around them, surveying the destruction. Bodies were everywhere, blood was everywhere, and stones were scattered around the room. Dead vines lay in a circle around the broken glass cauldron. Hermione, without a word, took her hand from Ron's and hurried over to Kate. She gently felt for a pulse, then looked up and smiled. "She's just unconscious," Hermione announced gladly. "Her pulse is strong." Ron headed towards Angelina, but Harry put a hand on his wrist.

"What?" Ron asked, confused. Harry bit his lip and wiped a silent tear that was tracing a path in the dirt on his face.

"She'd dead, Ron," he replied quietly. Ron's eyes opened wide, and he looked back at her. Angelina lay in blood, her arms scattered around her, eyes closed, the silver knife still in her neck. Hermione dropped Kate's wrist and slowly rose to her feet. Her lip trembled, and she put a hand over her mouth to stifle a sob. Ron looked at the ground.

"Oh," he said quietly. "I guess we'd better... see who else made it." Harry nodded slowly, wiping another tear away quickly. He then turned and walked over to Oliver and took his pulse quickly. Determining that he was alive, he whispered "_Enervate!_" and Oliver's eyes opened groggily.

"Harry?" he muttered, sounding sleepy. "What's going on?"

"Nothing," Harry replied. "We won. He's dead."

"Oh... Kate!" Oliver shot up, looking around wildly. He tore across the room and knelt by her side, whispering nonstop to himself. Hermione revived Kate quickly and left them alone. She suddenly noticed Arabella lying by two piles of greasy dust, and walked over to check if she was alive or not.

Hermione steeled herself for death. She hardened her insides, preparing herself for the knowledge that some of her friends would be cold and lifeless, and would never again laugh or eat or talk or get dressed on Christmas and jump onto the foot of her bed. Some of her friends would never live to see the reconstruction of the wizard world. Hermione shut down her insides, knowing she'd pay the price of hysteria later, but also knowing that remaining in control _now _was more important.

Arabella was alive. Hermione breathed a sigh of relief and performed the revival spell.

Harry was the one who remembered Sirius. He'd forgotten when he woke, but seeing the toppled column reminded him of why Angelina was dead. Who knew why she'd gone crazy when Sirius was killed? He couldn't help but think that her rage and pain had resembled Ron's to a frightening degree, but then his mind shut down and Sirius' death really hit him.

__

Remus is going to slaughter me, he thought numbly to himself, staring at the bloody corner of a robe that peeked out from under the pile of stones. Several more tears tracked their way down his cheeks, but he ignored them. _He's gone. He's gone._ A strangled sob escaped his lips, and he sank to his knees, putting a hand over his eyes.

Before anyone knew what they were doing, then all stumbled over to Harry and knelt in a rough circle. Everyone simply knelt there and cried.

When they were finished, and there was no more room for tears inside of them, they stood up, everyone supporting everyone else. Harry cleared his throat and managed to speak in a low voice hoarse from sobs.

"It's not over yet," he said softly. "His Death Eaters are still out there, and there's the other Dark Creatures to deal with. But He's gone, so they will be without a leader. I think we have our work cut out for us."

"How are we going to get back to headquarters?" Oliver asked.

"We get off Hogwarts grounds and Apparate. Now that no one's monitoring the Apparating, we can use it again." Everyone nodded. "Do we want to get our packs?" Everyone shook his or her head. "Then let's go." The ragtag group headed for the doors.

Behind their backs, something amazing began to happen. 

It started as a soft glow in the ashy remains of the Dark Lord, then grew in intensity. The group turned and stared as the entire room was bathed in a glow that got steadily brighter, until they had to shield their eyes.

After a minute, the glow vanished. Harry opened his eyes and gasped.

Hogwarts was back. They were standing in the Great Hall, complete with tables and banners on the wall. The blood, dead vines and the loose stones were gone, and the bodies were all lined up on the floor. They were clean and unmarked, and their robes were immaculate. Sirius, Angelina and Rowan lay side by side, and Harry couldn't help but notice Angelina's hand was very close to Sirius'.

"What magic is this?" breathed Ron, looking around.

"I expect it's the _Post Mortem_ reaction," Hermione replied, looking around, just as amazed.

"Swallowed another textbook, Hermione?" Harry asked, eyes wide open.

"The _Post Mortem_ reaction occurs after a wizard's death," Hermione explained, searching the walls with her eyes. "When a wizard dies and his wand is broken, the spells he has performed that require energy directly from his wand to keep the spells in place break."

"Oh," Arabella said, stunned. She suddenly put a hand to her temple, as though she had a sudden headache. Her eyes flashed green for a second, then reverted to normal. She looked up again.

"Why are they... cleaned up like that?" Oliver asked, choked.

"I don't know," answered Hermione. "It... it could be the magic of Hogwarts itself. There is magic, old magic, in these very stones. Maybe... its the castle's way of saying thank you."

"Thank _you_," Harry said to the open air. He turned back towards the doors. "Come on," he said, beckoning for the others to follow. They turned and followed him out the doors.

**__**

Epilogue

Harry shuffled a packet of papers and stapled them together. They were his official reports, combined with the official reports of all the surviving members of Mission Team Alpha- the team that had defeated the Dark Lord. He was putting them on file, and then he was going to go through the list of fatalities in the Subspace Hideout's fight with the Death Eaters. They had attacked while he was away, and it had nearly killed the Resistance. The fight was far from over, Harry reflected soberly. Many of the Death Eaters had been killed, and Severus Snape had returned to the Subspace Hideout alive and fairly well—it had been he who warned the Resistance of the Death Eater's attack.

Harry put the report on file, and picked up the folder that contained the official report of the attack. To his relief, only three people had truly died, but the list of the wounded was extensive and contained both Fred and George Weasley. He suspected their more grievous wounds were from Mrs. Weasley once she'd learned they'd been hurt. To his surprise, however, there was another list tucked away behind the list of wounded. It was a list of new recruits to the Resistance's waning numbers. He glanced through the names, recognizing a few, a smile spreading on his lips. There were at least fifty people on this list! He checked the total count at the bottom: Fifty-six. Fifty six new people, some of which declared extensive training under specialty knowledge. Harry's heart lightened. Perhaps ridding the world of every trace of Voldemort's presence wouldn't be as impossible as he'd previously thought.

Ron and Hermione sat on Fred and George's beds in the medical wing. The twins sported broken arms and an equal amount of cuts and bruises, but they were healing. Madame Pomfrey had explained that she couldn't heal their bones, because by the time she got to them the bones had already begun to set. There was a potion working it's way into their arm bones to dissolve them, and then they would have to grow new arm bones. The twins were joking about Lockhart again, and Hermione was still blushing and being teased about her crush on him. No one had forgotten that phase of Defense Against the Dark Arts.

Kate and Oliver were avoiding each other, as usual. They'd both become extremely skittish around the other, even though it was obvious how they both felt. Currently, Oliver was sitting in his room, and Kate was being chased down the corridor in a game of tag against some of the smaller wizard children. Before she could turn into Oliver's corridor, Alicia opened Oliver's door and placed an illusion on the corridor so the door into Oliver's room looked like a way out. Kate, predictably, ran right into his room. She stopped short when she saw him, and Alicia slammed and locked the door. She high-fived the children who'd been chasing Kate, and informed the two locked in the room that they weren't coming out until they talked things through.

Remus Lupin sat in his room, staring dejectedly at a picture of Sirius. It was from their school days, so Sirius's hair was long and shaggy. He looked like a rock star, Remus reflected sadly. He got up and placed the picture back on the dresser. Other photos waved and winked at him. James and Lily grinned and waved from their wedding picture, he and Sirius wrestled on Sirius' bed at school, a smiling fifth year James planted a kiss on Lily's cheek and she got up and chased him. There was one picture that had been partially destroyed. It was a picture of three boys, all wearing graduation outfits and waving diplomas triumphantly towards the camera. Where it was torn, it looked as though there might have been another boy at one point, but it was hard to tell. Remus touched a picture of Sirius on his motorcycle, wearing a leather jacket and ratty jeans, winking at the camera. He put his thin face in his hands and two cold tears trickled down his worn cheeks. He reflected that once again, he was the last of their band left.

Arabella sat in her room in silence. She was clutching her head in pain and rocking back and forth. Her lips were moving rapidly, but no sound could be perceived. Her eyes flashed a bright, acidic green...

**__**

Fin.

A/N: Well, that's the end of that, folks! Now, just to let you all know, there _will_ be a sequel to this... probably called "Darkness Rising" or some such nonsense. If you'd like me to e-mail you when it's posted, tell me in your review, or e-mail me at LilithAD at aol. Thanks for reading this. Hey, did anyone catch the Sirius/Angelina subtext that I planted in there? I just thought it was an odd combination, don't worry, I am still an avid Sirius/Remus supporter (Long live the One True Way!) as you can probably tell by the second to last paragraph. Anyway, it's been fun everyone. Peace!

--Lilith

"Omnie mutantur, nihil interit." [Everything changes, but nothing is truly lost.]

-Neil Gaiman, The Sandman: The Wake


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